


Sign Your Life Away

by scxlias



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Superman - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Arranged Marriage, Angst, Asexual Character, Developing Relationship, F/M, M/M, Secret Identity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-24
Updated: 2018-05-19
Packaged: 2019-03-23 03:50:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 23,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13779063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scxlias/pseuds/scxlias
Summary: The Wayne family is a good one, well known, well off, charitable, likable, politically unaffiliated. So when a treaty with Krypton is hinging on an arranged marriage, the Wayne boys are some of the first they approach. Tim is very, very aware that the name right underneath 'Wayne' on the UN's list is 'Luthor'. He can't allow some poor stranger to be forcibly bound to Luthor for the rest of their lives. So when they ask him, he says yes, before he can stop to think if this is actually a good idea.





	1. Engagement

**Author's Note:**

> hey, so apparently all i can write is identity porn and arranged marriage aus. someone needs to stop me. 
> 
> anyway, there is a scene that depicts tim being afraid of the idea that someone physically stronger could force him into something he wouldn't want to do, but this is not a scenario that will play out in this fic, it is just tim needing assurance from his brothers that he is safe!

Both Bruce and Tim had made it onto the UN’s shortlist of possible candidates, despite Tim’s young age and Bruce Wayne’s public reputation and possible engagement. The Wayne family is a good one, well known, well off, charitable, likable, politically unaffiliated. Of course, Dick Grayson would’ve been their first choice, had he not already been married, but Tim and Bruce are acceptable too. They make it very high up on the list. 

Bruce flat out denies them when he’s approached, telling them very plainly that the last thing he wants is to be tangled up in a giant political show and he’s engaged anyway, and putting it out of his mind after that. He thinks no more of it. They approach three more well known people, all of whom reject the offer, and then they approach Tim. 

Tim gets the distinct feelings that Bruce was unaware that Tim’s name was on the list. He, on the other hand, has been acutely aware of his name and Bruce’s since this whole treaty business first began. He may or may not have hacked the UN. Child’s play. 

He’s also, very, very aware that the name directly under his on this list is Lex Luthor. 

He knows Luthor cannot be allowed to have his hands in this pot in any capacity. Tim cannot, in good conscience, allow someone to be forcibly bound to Lex Luthor. He cannot allow some unsuspecting alien become Lex’s next project, because he knows that Lex is not above doing that to his spouse. 

They approach Tim, and he says yes. 

They tell him that they’ll get back to him with his future wife’s name as soon as it’s been decided on. 

He tells them he’s gay, and they stumble and then they tell him they will adjust plans, and they will tell him his future husband’s name as soon as the Kryptonian delegation makes their decision. 

A week later, they tell him his husband is a respectable man from the Kryptonian House of El, and congratulate him on his engagement, and Tim abruptly realizes just how monumentally he’s fucked up. 

~*~

“The UN approached me about the Krypton treaty, last week,” Tim says, offhandedly, when they’re all together for Alfred’s once monthly mandatory family dinners. 

Jason cocks an eyebrow, but otherwise doesn’t react, Damian scoffs, Cass pauses when she looks at him, Dick raises both of his eyebrows and exchanges a look with Wally. 

Bruce lets out a derisive laugh. “They asked me about a little while ago too. Ridiculous, that they’re not trying to negotiate around such a simple term in the treaty.” Bruce has never hidden his opinions on this matter. He’s excited for the opportunities for scientific advancement provided by this new relationship with Krypton. Wayne Enterprises subsidiaries have been spearheading the process of information exchange with Krypton’s scientists. He’s still wary of the whole thing, and is not at all thrilled about the arranged marriage that Krypton’s delegation had insisted on, to keep with their planet’s traditions. 

“I agreed.”

Dick, in the midst of taking a sip of water, actually spits all over the table. 

“Timmy, you did what?” he exclaims, eyes wide. 

The table sits in stunned silence. 

Tim casts his eyes downward, rubbing the back of his neck nervously. 

“I hacked the UN servers when they announced that they’d come up with the short list of names for consideration. I was really hoping that someone before Bruce or in between the two of us would have accepted, but they didn't. So I had to.”

“You had to?” Jason asks incredulously. His grip on his dinner knife is dangerously tight. Tim instinctively leans away.

Bruce interjects before Jason can open his mouth again. “Tim, what do you mean you had to?”

Tim sighs and folds his hands on the table in front of him, clasping them tightly enough that his knuckles go white. “Luthor’s name was the next one on the list after mine. We all know he would’ve accepted and whoever Krypton sent here would end up in the ninth circle of hell. I couldn’t let that happen. I couldn’t live with myself if I let that happen. I know you’re against this, Bruce, but I have to do it. I couldn’t let this guy be forced to marry Luthor.”

The whole table stills again and Tim smacks a hand over his mouth, eyes wide with something akin to abject terror. 

Logically he knows that his family will have no problem with his being gay. Dick and Wally have been married for going on two years. Jason’s never hidden his… escapades with other men. 

But still. This was not how he’d been intending on coming out to his family. 

“They’re making you marry a man?” Damian asks, disgust evident in his voice and expression. 

“They’re  _ letting _ me marry a man.” Damian’s look changes immediately. “I’m gay,” Tim says softly.

No one says anything for a moment. The silence feels oppressive. 

“Well this’ll be one hell of a way to come out to the public,” Dick says finally, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Thanks for telling us, kiddo. We’ve got your back, okay?” 

It settles something in Tim’s chest, hearing Dick say that, and they return to their dinner in silence that feels a lot more comfortable. 

Ten minutes later, when Selina slips into the room and loops her arms around Bruce’s shoulders, asking, “I’m sorry I’m late for dinner. What’ve I missed?” Bruce barks out a laugh that startles everyone at the table and Tim thinks that maybe this’ll be fine. 

~*~

The most inconvenient thing about being suddenly engaged to an alien for the sake of a treaty is the sudden appearance of reporters outside of Wayne Enterprises whenever he goes to work. It’s annoying, to say the least. 

Lower on his list of concerns, but still inconvenient, is the fact that he’s been asked to attend a few important treaty meetings, but will not be allowed to meet his future husband until the day of the wedding. Partially due to Kryptonian tradition and partially, he’s certain, due to the Human delegation not wanting to risk him trying to back out if he meets his fiance and they don’t get along right away. 

It’s a fear of Tim’s, but he knows the importance of this treaty and he knows the importance of his involvement, though that last bit isn’t really a concern for anyone else. 

He’s in this for the long run. For… well, for the rest of his life. 

No backing out now. 

The meetings are tedious and boring, but they need his signatures on documents and they need him to display that he’s an acceptable candidate for the Kryptonians, who place so much value in knowledge and the pursuit of it, and the Kryptonians need him there so they can implant a translator in his jaw so that he can communicate with his husband. 

That last one hurts more than Tim lets on. He doesn’t protest though, and the world leaders he’s suddenly become so well acquainted with are all very pleased. 

Tim kind of hates every second of all of it, but he doesn’t complain. 

It goes on for months. 

It feels like it’ll never end.

And then they present him with a document that he doesn’t recognize. 

“What’s this?” he asks, pulling it towards himself. Not one of the treaty papers. He’d read those papers half a dozen times over, every single one of them. This isn’t one of them. 

The UN General Assembly President smiles and offers Tim a very fancy pen. “It’s the marriage certificate and contract. There will be a ceremony, but that’s mostly for show. We want the treaty finalized as soon as possible, and that can’t be done until the marriage is official. The Kryptonian party has already signed. All that’s left is for you to put your signature on that and we’ve made history, Mr. Drake.”

“Drake-Wayne,” Tim corrects, absently, staring at the document in his hands with empty eyes. 

“Oh, yes, my apologies, Mr. Drake-Wayne,” the man corrects himself. Tim takes the pen being offered to him, careful to hide the shaking of his hands. “By signing this, you’re putting the final seal of approval on Earth’s first intergalactic treaty. You’re doing an incredible service to your planet, and at such a young age. You’ll be remembered in the history books for centuries.”

Tim’s not really sure he much cares about that or if he really wants that at all. But, even despite the tremor in his fingers and the hitch in his breath, he signs the contract. 

Signs his life away. 

He feels something in his chest twist, but he ignores it as he pushes the pen and paper back across the too shiny mahogany table. 

“That’s the last of it. Congratulations on your marriage, Mr. Drake-Wayne. I’ll look forward to seeing the wedding ceremony,” the General Assembly President says. 

Tim smiles and stands and shakes the man’s hand. “I’m proud to do this for my planet, sir.” 

His smile does not reach his eyes, and his knees feel weak, and his handshake is just a touch too strong. 

The other man does not notice.

Tim leaves, feeling distinctly like he’s just sold himself without even realizing it. 

~*~

It takes a week for it to really set in. 

He’s  _ married. _ A simple signature on a paper and he’s been bound for life to a man he’s never met before. 

To a man whose  _ name _ he doesn’t even  _ know _ . 

Oh god. What has he done?

~*~

A week after that, his phone rings, and the symbols that cross the screen are not any human language, but Tim still, somehow, understands them. It’s a phone number. Or the Kryptonian equivalent. Hesitantly, he answers the phone, his heart pounding in his chest. 

“Hello?” he greets, unsure of just who exactly he’s speaking to.

“Timothy Drake-Wayne?”

“This is he.” 

The voice on the other end of the line is male, someone older, Tim thinks. “Hello, Timothy. I am Kal-El of Krypton.”

The House of El. Oh god. Is this Tim’s husband? He sounds… fuck, he sounds like Bruce. This man is probably old enough to be his father, this can’t be the man he’s married to, it can’t be, it can’t be, they wouldn’t, there’s no way, they wouldn’t do this, no one would do this to him. 

He puts the phone on speaker and pulls the receiver away from his mouth so he can try to stop himself from hyperventilating without Kal-El hearing him. 

“On my planet,” Kal-El continues, oblivious to Tim’s building panic attack, “it is tradition that partners in an arranged marriage do not meet before the wedding day, but in many cases, each person will meet with their future partner’s family beforehand. Many partners choose to open up some form of communication after they meet with the families, but that is up to you.” 

“I see. I wasn’t aware of that tradition. I’m afraid arranged marriages aren’t too common on my planet,” Tim forces himself to say. He sounds desperate for air even to himself. 

Kal-El makes a curious noise and when he speaks again, Tim registers that the translator in his jaw is just a touch warm. Kal-El isn’t speaking English. The translator has either hard-wired into his brain to translate for him, or it’s warping what he says as it comes out of his mouth. 

Both thoughts make him uncomfortable, and he makes a note to finish his studies of Kryptonian as soon as he possibly can so he can cut the small piece of tech out of his body. He’s nearly fluent. Maybe he can cut it out now and hope for the best. 

“Oh. I didn’t realize,” Kal-El says, and snaps Tim out of his thoughts. “You’ll have to tell me more about your planet’s customs when we meet. I know Kon has reached out to your father and siblings already, but as this tradition is Kryptonian, I thought it best for me to reach out rather than assume you knew of it.”

“Who’s Kon?” Tim asks without thinking. 

Kal-El hesitates and when he does speak, there is confusion along with the hesitance. “Kon-El. My son. Your intended.”

Kal-El’s… son?

Oh god. 

He’s such an idiot.

The sigh of relief he lets out makes his whole body go loose and he slouches in his chair, feeling suddenly boneless. 

“I’m sorry, sir,” Tim says quietly. Meek. “I got myself a little confused. I only knew my husband was of the House of El. I didn’t know his given name.”

Kal-El puts the pieces together very quickly. “You believed I was your intended?”

“I’m so sorry for the confusion, sir, really. This was all just a mix up on my part.”

“Nonsense. Timothy, I’m nearly twice your age. I am the one who should be sorry, for making you so uncomfortable, even if it was unintentional.”

Tim is struck with a strong sense of guilt at that. He’s already making his father in law feel bad. This is not making a good impression, for himself or his people. 

“Sir, that’s really not necessary. It was an honest mistake and it was my fault,” Tim insists. 

“Timothy, it’s alright. Do not blame yourself for a simple mistake. And please, call me Kal. We are family after all.”

Tim does not at all think it’s alright, but the words that come out of his mouth are not an insistence that it really is all his fault and he’s sorry and he’d like to find a way to make it up to Kal for making him feel bad, which is what he’s thinking. 

Instead, he says, “No one calls me Timothy.” 

He smacks his forehead loudly after that, his breath hitching in his chest again. 

Kal though, doesn’t seem phased by it. “What would you prefer to be called?”

“Tim. Everyone calls me Tim.”

“Alright Tim,” Kal says, and Tim can almost hear the smile in his voice. This man is too cheery. He reminds Tim of Dick. “My wife and I would like to arrange a meeting with you, to meet my son’s intended.” Tim doesn’t miss the way Kal says my son, not our, and files it away for later. “Kon is meeting your mother and father and your siblings this weekend, if you would like to arrange something at the same time?”

Tim doesn’t correct Kal when he calls Selina his mother. She’s as good as, if he’s being honest, even if she and Bruce aren’t married yet. It’s unimportant. He simply agrees and gives Kal the location of the ridiculously posh restaurant he takes potential investors to to impress them. The place is enough of a distraction that it takes some of the pressure off of Tim. He likes it. The staff are nice too. 

He ends the call with Kal amiably, and calls the restaurant and arranges to have a huge portion of the place cleared for the time he’ll be there with his new in-laws, just to be safe. Give them some privacy or something like that. 

If he’s honest with himself, he’s being paranoid, but he’d never admit that. 

~*~

That night, Tim slices the translator out of his skin.

~*~

That Saturday finds him at the restaurant a half an hour early, wishing he was old enough to have just one drink to settle his nerves. Maybe help dull the pain in his aching ribs from where he’d been injured on patrol the night before. 

He shakes that thought from his head quickly, focuses on steadying his trembling hands. He has nothing to fear. These people seem nothing but kind. Kon’s the one facing Tim’s insane family with no preparation today. 

He feels bad for Kon. 

A man, woman and boy younger than Damian enter the restaurant and are directed towards him and all pity for Kon leaves his mind, replaced by sheer terror like he’s never felt. He deals with sleazy businessmen all day, and psychotic criminals all night. 

He should not be this nervous to meet his in-laws. 

He still is, against all logic.

He stands as they approach the table, extending his hand to Kal first, and then his wife. 

“ _ It’s great to meet you all. I’m Tim Drake-Wayne. Your son’s intended, _ ” Tim greets in near flawless, if oddly accented, Kryptonian. 

“ _ It’s very nice to meet you as well, Tim. I’m Kal, we spoke before. This is my wife, Lois Lan-Ne, and our son Jon-El.” _

They sit then, and Tim tucks his hands under the table to hide their shaking. 

Lois speaks as they sit, concern edging into her tone. “ _ Oh dear. What happened to your face?” _ she asks, gesturing to her own jawline. 

Tim brushes his fingertips over the same spot on his own face, and realizes what she means. 

_ “I removed my translator. I was uncomfortable with it, and I believe I have learned your language fairly well.” _

_ “You are not being translated?”  _ Kal asks in surprise. “ _ I am surprised. You speak our language incredibly well.” _

Tim shrugs.  _ “Your family is moving to an entirely new planet because of this treaty. The least I could do was learn your language. Besides, this is far from the first language I’ve taught myself.” _ He forces himself to smile a little bit, orders a glass of water for himself and Jon when the waiter comes by, and tries to help Kal and Lois through the drink menu, before simply ordering them a nice bottle of wine. 

The next time Kal speaks, it is in English, his translator picking up the slack. “It is very thoughtful of you to learn our language. I am sure that Kon will appreciate it greatly.”

“I know it helped, when my brother Damian came to live with us. My brothers and I learned Arabic, to speak with him whenever he got upset.”

“Is it common for children to spend time away from their families at a young age?” Lois asks, her translator making her voice sound a little flat. 

Tim shakes his head. “Damian grew up with his mother, somewhere in Pakistan. He came to live with us just after he turned ten.”

“Your brother is not of the same mother as you are?”

Tim sucks in a breath through his teeth and waits for the waiter to place their drinks on the table before answering her. 

“Damian, my youngest brother, is the only one of us biologically related to my father. The rest of us are adopted. Dick grew up in a circus, Jason grew up around Gotham, I grew up here too. Our sister Cass grew up travelling around a lot too. Bruce took us all in when our parents died. Gave us a new family.”

“I see. This is not something you find on Krypton. How kind of your parents to seek children in need of a home in addition to their biological child,” Kal says, and the expression on his face is so open and happy-looking that Tim thinks that the emotion behind his words must’ve been lost in translation. 

“Selina isn’t Damian’s mother either. Or any of ours, technically. But she’s always been very good to us, so we think of her that way a lot. She’s my father’s fiance though, so she’ll be our step-mother soon enough,” Tim explains.

The ice in his glass is irritatingly loud when his shaky hand rattles it around as he takes a sip. 

“ _ Your family’s weird, _ ” Jon pipes up, smile on his face. 

Lois looks like she’s about to reprimand him when Tim lets out a short laugh and agrees with him. 

“ _ Yes it is, little one,” _ Tim says, hoping he’s not crossing a line by using the Kryptonian term of endearment for a child with Jon. “ _ My family is a little odd even by my world’s standards, especially when it was only me and my siblings and our father. Single men do not tend to adopt so many children. But we are a good family. I would not trade them for the cosmos.”  _ Tim really likes the way that sounds in Kryptonian. Not just the world. His family is worth the cosmos, as the Kryptonian version of the saying suggests. 

His words makes Lois smile, and conversation lulls as Tim explains the menu to them, pointing out a few of Damian’s simpler favorites for Jon. 

Tim speaks to the waiter for them all, an easy smile on his face. 

This all feels a lot like a business deal and Tim doesn’t really like it. These people are his family now. But at the same time, they are strangers and this doesn’t feel at all like it did when he first started hanging around Dick, and Dick said they were brothers. He barely knew Dick the first time his brother said that, but Tim believed him, felt it in his bones. 

All Tim feels now is unease. 

He’s aware of the fact that Kryptonian biology is different from his. That his new husband and his family have abilities on Earth that they don’t on Krypton. He’s aware that even Jon could probably crush him with a pinky finger. 

All together, this situation as a whole is one specifically designed to stress Tim out. So many factors out of his control. 

And he’d walked directly into it, knowing what he was getting into. 

“ _ Tim, are you alright? You look a pale, _ ” Lois says, all motherly concern. 

Tim makes himself smile. “Yes, ma’am, I’m fine.  _ Just a little hungry, I suppose. I got distracted with some work when I woke up and skipped breakfast this morning.” _ He switches to Kryptonian without even thinking about it. 

“Work? What kind of work?” Kal asks him. 

Jon scrunches up his face at all the work talk. 

“You know my father owns a very large company, right? Well I manage WayneTech, Wayne Enterprises’ technology branch. I have for the past couple years. We do a lot of research and development and that sort of thing. We’ve been working a lot with your scientists recently, exchanging information.”

Jon hums quietly, like he’s considering this information very seriously. “ _ Sounds boring. _ ”

_ “It can be,”  _ Tim agrees with a smile, while Lois chastises her son for being so rude.  _ “But I enjoy it, most of the time. I get to oversee the creation of some amazing new things.” _

Jon seems to warm to the idea a little at that. 

“I see why you were selected to be your world’s ambassador,” Kal says, the translator taking most of the emotion out of his voice. Tim’s left to guess whether that’s a good or a bad thing. “You seem to be a very intelligent young man. You would do well on Krypton.”

“ _ Yeah, they really like smart people on our planet,” _ Jon chimes in, with a confidence only a ten-year-old could muster. 

This boy is so unlike Damian, Tim thinks. 

“ _ Thank you, Kal-El. That’s very kind of you to say,” _ Tim says, for lack of a better answer to give. 

The waiter comes to deliver their food then and saves him from having to dive down that rabbit hole any further. It’s a godsend, if he’s ever seen one.

Conversation settles into small talk about the differences between Earth food and Kryptonian. Lois admonishes Jon’s table manners. Kal leans over and feeds Lois a bite of his meal when she asks to try it. 

The whole thing is so painfully domestic and  _ normal _ , it makes Tim’s chest ache with longing. 

He loves his family, he does. He loved his parents, and he loves Bruce and Selina and his siblings but this sort of interaction, normal family interaction is something Tim hsa always longed for. 

He tries valiantly to keep this from showing on his face. 

Lois glances at him and concern writes itself into the lines of her face and Tim knows he’s failed. 

Fuck. 

He hadn’t wanted to worry any of them with his ridiculous issues. 

“Tim, what’s wrong? Are you well?” she asks gently.

Tim nods and tells himself his eyes are just watery from the spices in his meal. “ _ I’m sorry. I don’t mean to worry you. I’m perfectly fine.” _

“ _ Are you sure? _ ” 

Tim coughs to clear his throat and forces a smile to his face. He speaks in English, unable to muster the words in Kryptonian. 

“I’m positive.”

~*~

He made a fool of himself, he’s sure, but the El family parts with warm words, and tells him they are thrilled that he a member of their House now. They are certain that he will make an excellent addition to the family. 

Tim is certain they are dead wrong, but he doesn’t say that. 

~*~

It hits him not long after he meets with Kon’s family that he has no idea if Kryptonians have the same concept of sexualities as humans do.

That train of thought prompts a panic attack that takes him almost an hour to calm himself from. 

It takes him another week to bring himself to make the decision to talk to Dick about it. 

He knows Dick’s been benched for the week because of a minor concussion, and he’s been barred from going out for a night because of light sleep deprivation, so he swings by the cave while the others are out on patrol. 

Dick’s a little surprised to see him there, but he doesn’t say anything, just smiles and greets him warmly. 

The smile falls when he sees the serious look on Tim’s face, his agitated body language and the way he can’t make himself stay still. 

“What’s wrong?” he asks immediately, prodding Tim towards a chair and sitting down on the desk across from him. 

Tim shakes his head, clenching and unclenching his hands as he searches for the words to explain why he’s so upset. 

He shouldn’t be. He should be fine. He has no idea why he’s so agitated. 

Well he does, but he really doesn’t want to admit it to himself. 

“Timmy?” Dick asks gently, worry creasing his brow. 

Tim, unthinkingly, blurts out, “What if he wants to have sex with me?” and then blanches, all of the color leaving his face and leaving him looking like a ghost. 

Dick’s eyes widen. “What? You mean Kon?”

Tim nods, twisting his hands together until his knuckles are white and the rest of his skin is red and it’s actually starting to hurt. 

“Tim, buddy, it probably isn’t much different than it would be with a human guy. And if you don’t want to right away you can just tell him you want to wait until you know each other better and you’re more comfortable together.”

Tim shakes his head. He feels a little ill just thinking about this, his mind spinning so fast it’s nearly making him dizzy. 

He probably needs to sleep, he thinks distantly. 

“No. What if I don’t want to. Ever. I never want to.”

Dick furrows his brow and leans forward a little. “Well you hardly know the guy. You’ll just have to see if that kind of relationship is something you want with Kon when you get to know him a little better.”

Tim shakes his head again, a little harder this time. His breath is starting to hitch and his chest feels tight and he feels dizzy and sick and like he wants to crawl out of his skin because he’s scared and disgusted and kind of ashamed of himself for being so pathetic about all of this. 

“No, I know I don’t want to already. Not with him, not with anyone. I. Dick, I’m ace. Asexual. I don’t want that with him, ever. I know that already. I don’t want that from a relationship.”

Dick’s expression softens in understanding, his mouth falling into a silent ‘oh’, before he responds. “I see. Then all you have to do is tell him that. Tell him that you want to be close with him, but you don’t want to be intimate, and he should understand. Kon seems like a pretty good guy.”

Again, Tim shakes his head. Frantic, wild. He feels out of control of his own body just sitting here discussing this with his brother, feels like he can’t breath, like there’s an elephant on his chest, like he’s going to die sitting here in the cave with Dick. 

“Timmy, hey, hey, come on, tell me what you’re thinking, what’s wrong?” Dick asks, sliding down from his seat to crouch in front of Tim. 

Tim startles when Dick slips into his view, flinching back from him. 

This has absolutely moved into definitive panic attack territory. 

“Breathe for me, little brother. What’s got you so worked up? Are you worried he’ll react badly when you tell him?” Dick pitches his voice low and steady, placing one hand on Tim’s knee and clasping the other around his wrist tightly. He squeezes Tim’s wrist in time with his inhales and relaxes his grip as he exhales. Tim struggles to match his breaths to Dick’s and only partially succeeds.

“Tim, what’s going on? You’ve gotta talk to me so I can help you, kiddo. Come on. It’s just me. You’re safe,” Dick assures him. 

Tim takes two shallow stuttering breaths and manages to gasp out a few words. “I can’t stop him.”

Dick’s grip on his knee tightens. “Can’t stop who, Tim?”

“If he wants--I can’t-- He’s too strong. I can’t stop him if he-- what if he tries to--and I can’t--Dick, what if he--” Tim chokes off his last word and forces himself to take a few deep breaths so that he can get out a coherent sentence. “What if he doesn’t understand? What if he wants that from me and I can’t give it to him and he still tries to-- I won’t be able to stop him. He’s too strong. I don’t think I could even stop him as Red Robin. Tim Drake definitely can’t.” Tim’s sentences are choppy and barely audible but he gets them out. 

Dick hears what he’s saying and gets what he means, and his hands tighten convulsively where’s he’s still got a grip on Tim. 

“Has he said something to you that’s made you think he’d do that, Tim?”

Tim shakes his head miserably, bites his lip. 

“Tim, all you have to do is say no. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. Especially not this, okay? Absolutely not this.”

Tim chokes on air and makes a noise like a wounded animal. “But what if it’s different on Krypton? What if it’s expected of married couples or something and he’s expecting it and he gets upset if I can’t?” 

Dick shakes his head and moves both of his hands to grasp Tim’s upper arms. Tim stares at his older brother with wide, terrified eyes. For all he’s done, all the evil he’s faced, Tim has never been so scared in his life. 

“Tim if he ever makes you feel uncomfortable, you tell me. I don’t care who he is, I will kick his ass. No one hurts my family. You know we’ve got your back.”

That doesn’t have the effect Tim thinks Dick was aiming for, because suddenly, all Tim can think of is Dick interfering and getting hurt because of him. 

“No, no, Dick, you can’t, you’d get hurt, you don’t know how strong they are, you have no idea what he could do to you. You could get hurt and it’d be all my fault, you can’t, Dick, you can’t, you can’t, you can’t.”

“Hey, Timmy, it’s okay, it’s okay, hey, come on kid, deep breaths, please, just breathe, Tim. Breathe. Please, breathe for me, Timmy, please.”

Tim’s whole body is trembling horribly, and he wrenches himself out of Dick’s grip with a wild flail. 

He’s definitely hyperventilating now, going lightheaded and dizzy from it. He can’t breathe, he can’t make himself stop panicking, he can’t get one rational thought through his head. 

He doesn’t even hear the motorcycle come roaring into the cave. 

He does hear, distantly, through ringing ears, Dick whispering something and then louder, him yelling, “No, Jay, don’t--”

Tim startles and shouts in surprise when someone takes him roughly by the shoulders and puts him on his feet, holding him upright. He looks up with wild eyes to see Jason, helmet and domino gone, hair clinging to his forehead and sticking up in several different directions. Were he in a better state of mind, he’d mock his brother for it. As it is, he can barely keeps his legs under him. 

“Look at me, kid, and listen good. If that guy even so much as brushes up against you wrong, I will put a fucking bullet in his head. No brother of mine is going to worry that their significant other is going to hurt them like that. I will not let him touch you in any way you do not want, I don’t give a single fuck how goddamn important this guy is. If he does anything to warrant this fear from you, they won’t find enough of him to bury. Got it?”

Then Jason does the last thing Tim ever expected him to do, and pulls Tim into a hug, holding him tightly, still pretty much the only thing keeping him upright. 

“You’re not alone, you little idiot. We’ve got your back.”

It takes another fifteen minutes, but Tim finally settles down, his heaving gasps turning into hiccuping breaths as he shudders against Jason’s chest. 

He pulls back, embarrassed, and scrubs the lingering tears off of his face.

Jason’s expressing more open concern on his face in that moment than he ever has before, unless someone was near death. 

Tim takes a deep breath and squares his shoulders and gives a self deprecating laugh. “Sorry about that,” he mutters, pushing his hair back out of his eyes. “Talk about an overreaction, huh?” 

Dick’s forehead creases, and one side of Jason’s upper lip curls into a snarl. 

“Tim, that’s not an overreaction,” Dick says in a low, steady voice. “Your worry is valid, and there’s nothing wrong with you for thinking about negative consequences, no matter how unlikely they may be. You are allowed to worry and be afraid, and none of that makes you any lesser.”

Jason casts his eyes to the side, and speaks in a low grumble. “Kid you think I can ever even look at a crowbar without having flashbacks? I hear the ticking of a clock sometimes, and I freeze up thinking there’s an explosion coming. Maybe your fear doesn’t stem from something fucked up like that, but being married to a total fuckin’ stranger is enough to set anyone on edge. Him being a super-powered alien whose culture you don’t totally get yet doesn’t help matters. Don’t beat yourself up over this.” 

Tim shakes his head and takes a step back from his brothers. They’re being too lenient with him. He shouldn’t have broken down like this. 

He agreed to this arrangement. He has no right to complain. He got himself into this. 

“I’m fine,” he insists. He is. He has to be. He has to be okay. He has to be fine, because if he isn’t, that’s just one more thing out of his control, and he’s already no longer in control of his life.

Jason just scoffs and shrugs, picking up his helmet from where he’d discarded it earlier. “You’re a shit liar Timbo, but you keep telling yourself that. Maybe you can fake it till you make it or something. I’m gonna dip before Bats gets back and chews me out for the guys I took out today. Tell Alf I’m sorry I missed him.”

And then Jason is gone, the roar of an engine following him out of the cave, moments before the batmobile skids to a stop. Dick jerks his head towards the stairs. 

“I’ll hold B and Dami off long enough for you to have a cup of tea with Alf to relax and then get up to bed.”

“But I have to--”

“Whatever it is can wait. If it’s pressing case stuff, B and I’ll handle it. If it’s anything else, it’ll still be there tomorrow. Take a break little brother. Get some sleep. I’ll see you in the morning.”

Dick ruffles Tim’s hair and shoves him towards the stairs and Tim goes this time. 

Alfred is waiting with a cup of tea when he gets up to the Manor, and Tim’s stomach knots at the thought that Alfred might have overheard Tims’ conversation with his brothers. 

Alfred doesn’t push him on it, simply drinks a cup of tea with him in silence and then ushers him off to bed. 

Tim gives Alfred a halfhearted grin and turns to leave the kitchen, but stops when he hears Alfred clear his throat, glancing back over his shoulder. 

“Remember, Master Timothy, I do not subscribe to your father’s views on using lethal force. If I were to find out you were injured in any way, the guilty party would find themselves very, very regretful, for a very, very short period of time.”

Tim’s smile turns a little more genuine, and that night, he sleeps better than he has in weeks.


	2. Ceremony

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> cass and jason are great siblings, and there is a wedding.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> shout out to amy for putting up with me about all this
> 
> timmy is an anxious little bean, so like, watch out for that. 
> 
> also, for those who may be interested, [a timkon playlist](http://grxysxns.tumblr.com/post/170178640311/pretty-reckless-a-timkon-playlist-for-cautious)

Tim’s wedding is scheduled the next week.

It’s been decided, without any consultation, that the wedding will take place in a month.

Tim promptly loses his shit for a hot second.

He has a month left of being his own person.

Only a month before he belongs to a Kryptonian.

Wait.

When the _fuck_ did he start thinking of it like that?

He’s spiraling, a little, he’ll admit.

He’s definitely worked his way well into constant low level anxiety by this point.

Kal introducing him to their cousin Kara does not help at all. If anything, it makes it worse, because meeting one more family member just makes this all so much more real.

Dick is always there for him, and by extension so is Wally, and Cass, though she doesn’t offer any advice, is always a strong supportive presence. Sometimes he prefers that to Dick. Prefers the silence. Being able to sit in a room with his sister without saying a word but knowing she is there for him nonetheless. He really needs that sometimes, when he can’t handle someone talking to him without feeling like he’s going to open his mouth to speak and just start screaming. Shapeless noise, harsh on everyone’s ears, achieving nothing. He really wants to do that sometimes.

He does it once, while he sitting there with Cass. Just looks up from his tablet, and with no preamble, no warning, just lets loose a strangled screech halfway between a scream and a groan. Cass starts a bit at the sudden noise, so out of character for Tim, but doesn’t react beyond that. Once he’s done, she stands from her place on the other side of the room and moves towards him. The armchair he’s occupying is big enough that she can plop herself down on top of him without actually sitting on him. She settles in so she’s actually sitting just to his side, her legs over his lap, and a book in hers, and says nothing to explain it, but the weight on top of him settles something in his chest, so he doesn’t protest.

He cannot express his gratitude to his sister, in moments like that, when he finds himself feeling overwhelmed with the lack of control he has in his life. She’s just like him. She shoved her way into this family same as he did. They understand each other in a way.

Tim finds himself seeking Cass out more and more often, as his wedding approaches.

He spends the month leading up to his marriage haunting the Manor like a ghost, whenever he’s not busy with some kind of working or sleeping. He’s too wired all the time to ever relax, unless Cass or Dick make him.

But it’s Jason, of all people, it’s Jason who Tim finds himself hunting down three days before his wedding.

Jason’s at one of his Gotham safehouses, Tim knows, but he’s gotten better at hiding the safehouses and himself, so it takes Tim four tries and the better part of two hours to track down his brother and by the end of it Tim feels like he’s going to vibrate out of his skin.

He slaps an open hand against the door of Jason’s apartment in the middle of Old Gotham, his other hand curled in a trembling fist in the pocket of his hoodie. Actually, when he glances down, it’s Cass’ hoodie, a worn old one with the Nightwing logo pasted across the chest, faded with age.

It’s comfortable and it’s comforting but its owner is currently in Metropolis with Dinah tracking down a lead and just a hoodie is not enough for Tim right now.

Because, tradition be damned apparently, Kon had not reached out to him. He’s about to marry a stranger, a man he only knows through what little conversation he’s had with with Kal, Lois and Jon and even sparser interaction with Kara, a man who could kill him by accident without a second thought, a man who doesn’t understand Tim’s culture or his planet or anything.

A stranger.

He’d go to Dick, but he can’t handle his eldest brother’s normal unceasing optimism.

So. Jason.

He slaps his hand against Jason’s door again, his breath coming out in harsh pants now.

Why won’t Jason open the door? Does he not care? Of course he doesn’t. He probably knows that it’s Tim at the door and he’s not answering because he doesn’t like Tim and Tim should’ve known coming here was a stupid idea because why would Jason give a shit about him when he replaced Jason and did such a terrible job doing justice to his memory and he should really just leave because Jason won’t want to see him or anything anyway and--

“Kid, hey!” a voice cuts through his thoughts. “Jesus, Timbo. What the fuck are you on?” Jason grumbles, grabbing Tim’s hoodie strings to tug him into the apartment. Tim stumbles a little, almost falling into Jason. Jason doesn’t comment on that, but he does say, “You stole this from Cassie you little monster.”

That, at least, earns a little laugh from Tim. It’s short, but it’s better than nothing.

Tim opens his mouth, and no words come out, just a sad, whiny groan.

“Yeah, same,” Jason says, shoving Tim at the couch. With his shaky limbs, the shove is more than enough to have Tim tumbling down to the couch in a heap of limbs. “Take off your shoes, you fucking heathen.”

Tim straightens himself out and takes off his shoes and stares blankly at the coffee table. Why is he even here? What is he doing?

A steaming mug comes into his view some indeterminable amount of time later. Tim looks up in surprise.

Jason just pulls a face and nods towards the mug.

“If you’re just gonna stare at it, it’s not gonna do much for ya, kid,” Jason mutters, setting his own mug down in front of himself as he sits in the armchair to Tim’s left. “It’s lemon balm. Some fancy shit Alf special orders. Helps with stress. Drink.”

Tim’s almost grateful for the order. It’s easier to do things when you don’t have to think of a course of action. And this is a simple direction. Drink the tea in front of him. Easy. Tim lets it cool and sips it and sets it down. Picks it up. Takes a few sips. Sets it back down. Repeats. His mug is nearly empty by the time Jason drops his own mug back onto the table and lets out a sigh.

“Alright. I’ve given you enough time. What’s eating you? Cause I can only handle a certain amount of emotional outburst per day and we’re quickly approaching that limit. You better get talking.”

“I’m getting married in three days,” Tim whispers in disbelief. “I only have three more days before I belong to this Kryptonian and I don’t know when I started thinking of it like that but I don’t like it and it scares me, and Cass is gone and Dick is just too… Dick and I just. It was stupid. I should leave. I’m sorry for bothering you.” He gets up quickly. His head spins.

“Sit,” Jason commands.

Tim sits.

“Listen, you little asshole. You’ve already interrupted my night and you’ve already bothered me. You can’t take it back now. You might as well make something of it. Talk.”

Tim talks.

“I just. Lately everytime I think of getting married, all I can think of is that I’ll be _his_ husband and I see the way Dick and Wally belong to each other and how Bruce and Selina are and I’m gonna be his like that soon but it feels weird and twisted and it makes me feel all sick inside and I don’t like it. It’s stupid.”

“Shut up,” Jason snaps. Tim shuts up, hunching in on himself a little. “Relax, jesus.” That’s the one thing Tim can’t do, but he does uncurl a bit. “Look. Your fear is rational. You are entering what should be an intimate relationship with someone you do not know. It’s reasonable that you’re afraid. Quit telling yourself it’s stupid, cause you’re not doing anyone any favors. The only thing you’re doing is invalidating yourself and I don’t have time to constantly be your personal goddamn cheerleader.”

“I’m sorry,” Tim responds immediately.

“I said shut up.” Tim shuts up. “This is a scary situation. Let yourself be scared or it’ll eat you up from the insides and you’re the only one that pays the price for that, and yes I am speaking from experience. Let yourself be afraid, let yourself feel whatever the fuck you have to feel, and have an adult conversation with your new boy toy whenever you get the chance to, and if he’s an ass about it, we’ll handle him for you. But otherwise, quit being so… you. Must be fucking exhausting.”

The responding cackle that Tim lets out is very near hysterical and Jason’s eyes widen a little.

“Jesus H. fucking Christ kid,” Jason mutters, and Tim picks up his mug and drains the rest of it just for something to do. Jason reaches over and plucks it out of his hands a moment later, setting it back down on the table. “Yeah, I figured I made the right choice with that.”

“What?” Tim asks, confused by Jason’s words, but it comes out sounding kinda funny and Tim glares at his brother, suddenly understanding. “You drug me?” he says, his tongue feeling heavy in his mouth.

“You’re too strung out. I know you haven’t slept in over forty-eight hours. You look like a strong gust of wind could take you out right now. You need rest. I took a page out of Alf’s book and put a mild sedative in your tea. Wasn’t even that much, you really must be tired,” Jason says with a shrug.

Tim leans forward like he wants to lunge at Jason but all he can really do is slump further into the couch. Jason pokes him in the shoulder and he just lets himself tip over onto his side.

“‘M gonna drug everything you love,” Tim mumbles unhappily, but he has to admit he really does need the sleep. Not that he’d ever tell Jason that.

“You do that kid. Get some shut eye first, you little vampire.”

“Not a vamp’re,” Tim grumbles, his words muffled by the pillow he’s got his face pressed into. He curls up a little tighter on the couch. “Tha’s Bruce.”

“Sleep,” Jason says.

Tim sleeps.

~*~

The next few days pass way, way too quickly.

He goes on his last patrol for a while two days before the wedding, and he gets two cracked ribs for his efforts that hurt every time he breathes.

There are last minute fittings just to be sure which are hell on his ribs and someone is calling about double checking flower arrangements and Alfred’s going out to pick up Cass and Steph’s dresses with them, and Babs is there cause Dick wants to decorate her chair for the occasion, and Kate’s even coming in from out of town and there’s just a lot going on.

Tim wants to scream.

He does not.

He plasters a smile on his face and hugs Kate when she arrives and helps her bring her bags up to a spare room. He helps Dick and Wally decorate Babs’ chair when Dick asks him to. He sits with Alfred for cup of tea in the early afternoon, because it Alfred asks, and no one tells Alfred no. He tells Stephanie and Cass that they look beautiful when Steph insists on showing him their dresses, because they are but he must not do a good enough job with his smile, because the second they see his expression, each of the girls grab one of his arms and tug him into Cass’ room.

His sister and his best friend sit with him there, and they let him shake apart sandwiched between them, and they don’t say a word of it. They sit with him until Alfred calls them for dinner, and the girls go to change and Tim forces himself to face his family. Cass comes to his room again and they sit in silence until Tim starts to drift, and she pokes him into bed.

She wishes him good night with quiet signs and Tim falls asleep as she’s leaving, and in the morning he wakes up alone for the last time.

~*~

The wedding ceremony is, to put it lightly, a media circus.

They arrive at the venue by limo, or, Bruce and all of Tim’s brother’s, Wally, Steph and Barbara do.

Dick goes onward into the abyss first. Gotham’s Golden Boy accompanied his husband and youngest brother. They’re enough to distract the paparazzi for a good while. Jason follows when the attention drifts, and he’s always good for shock value. Bruce Wayne’s second son, who was missing, presumed dead for so long and came back with a shock of white hair, an array of scars and unable to speak of his time away from Gotham. Everyone’s always desperate for more of Jason’s story, and Tim’s so thankful that Jason’s willing to play into that for a few hours for his sake. Bruce, Steph and Babs follow after, Bruce and Stephanie forging ahead to clear a path wide enough for Babs’ chair. Bruce shoves a reporter who sticks a foot out to stall Babs so they can get more pictures, and everyone assumes that in the quick chaos that results from that, Tim had slipped everyone’s notice, much to their chagrin.

Cass had snuck him in a back entrance to the venue with Alfred sometime around Jason’s entrance.

Bad luck for the bride to be seen before the wedding, or whatever the saying was, Tim thinks.

The couple hours left before the wedding pass far too quickly for Tim’s tastes.

His ribs throb as he paces the small the private room he’d been confined to while he waited.

The knock on his door startles him more than he cares to admit, and it’s not until he sees that it’s Bruce on the other side that he relaxes minutely.

“Hey champ.” Bruce never uses those sort of nicknames with Tim, so Tim immediately tenses again. His ribs protest. “They’re waiting for you,” Bruce says, and the color abruptly leaves Tim’s face.

He shakes his once, a gesture that makes him feel so small. “I’m not ready.”

“I don’t think any amount of time would’ve remedied that. You may not feel ready, but I know that you are equipped enough to deal with this. You will do our family and this world proud in this. Tim, I know you can do this.” There’s something in Bruce’s voice that he’s never heard.

Pride.

Not that Bruce has never been proud of them before. He’s told them often enough. But Tim’s never heard it reflected in his voice like _this_.

It makes a warmth spread through Tim’s chest and that’s just enough for Tim to slap a smile on his face that doesn’t reach his eyes and follow Bruce out of the room.

They approach a huge set of double doors and Tim’s heart starts hammering in his chest, hard enough to make his ribs hurt and his breath stutters, and it’s only Bruce’s hand on his shoulder that keeps him grounded, keeps him present in the moment and out of his ridiculous thoughts. Tim clenches his hands into fists and the doors open and Bruce is walking him down the aisle and he is about to get _married_ , and fuck, this is the most terrifying thing he’s ever done in his entire life, and he’d almost rather face down the Joker unarmed and completely on his own than do this. But he can do this. He can. He signed up for this. He has to do this.

He finally drags his eyes up from the ground as they step into the enormous room, and all of the breath leaves his body all at once.

His new husband is _gorgeous_.

He’s all sharp angles and dark hair and piercing blue eyes. He’s very obviously Kal-El’s son. He looks exactly like his father. He’s beautiful. Under any other circumstances, Tim thinks he’d be thrilled to have caught his attention.

As it is, Tim is, in short, terrified that Kon-El is looking at him at all.

They reach the altar too soon, and the minister starts speaking too soon and even with his brothers standing at his back, Tim wants to bolt.

There’s Kryptonian traditions woven into the ceremony. It’s happening at noon, when the sun is highest. There are traditional Kryptonian words mixed in with the human ones. Right before they say their vows, they press their palms together and their hands are bound with a red silk tie.

Kon says his vows first, and Tim cannot hear a word of it over the buzzing in his ears. He can hardly hear his own words either, but he recites them perfectly from memory. The minister undoes the binding on their hands and pronounces them married, and says “You may now kiss the groom” and Tim’s breath catches.

Kon places a hand on Tim’s waist, and the other on the side of his face, and pulls him in for a kiss and it is all so, so gentle, but Tim’s entire body freezes. He forces himself to return the kiss, but the rest of him refuses to cooperate until Kon has pulled away and broken all contact.

Tim is shaking.

He can’t do this.

What was he thinking?

What the hell was he thinking?

Distantly, he realizes that Dick, Cass and Jason are escorting him back down the aisle, while Kara and Jon are doing the same for Kon. The guest are all cheering too loudly, and there are too many cameras flashing, but he has to keep up appearances, he knows, so he stuffs his hands in his pockets to hide the trembling, and smiles like he’s the happy newlywed all of these plastic people think he is.

They very quickly make it to the banquet hall that is hosting the reception. This is a less public affair. Still a media stunt and a half, but there are fewer strangers gawking, fewer cameras flashing in their faces, fewer people asking them questions as they brush past.

There is still a crowd though. And as they work their way through it, they first lose Jon, and then Cass, and then Jason and then Kara, and finally Dick is gone from his side, and Tim is alone with Kon.

Not alone. There are a few hundred people in this gaudily decorated hall. But Tim no longer has the safety net of his brothers, or even the more familiar presence of Jon and Kara.

It’s just him and Kon, and a mass of strangers there for the publicity of it all.

“Mr. Drake-Wayne!” someone calls, and it jerks Tim out of his thoughts. There’s a press smile settling on his face quickly, and he rests his hand on Kon’s arm as he turns to address the speaker, because he knows that is what will look good to anyone here who isn’t his family.

“Mr. President!” Tim greets the UN General Assembly President, all the cheer in his voice so fake to his ears that it makes him want to grind his teeth. “I’m so happy you were able to make it.”

The UNGA President smiles a press smile right back at Tim and tips his drink in their direction. Tim wonders how he got a drink so quickly. He wants one. Just to make him a little less jumpy. That’s a bad thought. He shoves it away.

“It was a lovely ceremony. I just wanted to offer my congratulations to you both, you’re doing great things!”

Tim smiles and tucks his free hand into his pocket again and tightens his grip on Kon’s arm ever so slightly so that his visible hand won’t shake.

“Thank you. And I’m so honored that you’ve chosen to stay for the reception.” He wishes the man would leave. “I know you’re a very busy man.” He’s probably here because he thinks Tim’ll fuck up. “It’s so kind of you to take time out of your schedule to spend it with us on our wedding day.” Please leave, Tim thinks, he doesn’t want this man here.

“I wouldn’t miss such a momentous occasion for the world.”

Tim’s smile tightens just a little. “Well, we have so many people to speak with, and I’m sure you’ve got a lot of people who’d love some face time with you,” Tim says. “I’d hate to keep you, but it was so nice to get to see you here, thank you again, Mr. President.”

The dismissal is clear, and the man takes his leave of Tim and Kon.

Tim relaxes minutely.

Kon speaks, and Tim tenses again. His ribs are really not enjoying this.

“You speak well, Timothy.”

Kon’s voice is slightly distorted by the translator, but Tim still can’t help the shiver that runs up his spine at the sound of it. God, even Kon’s voice is pretty. This is unfair on so many levels.

Tim panics as he tries to think of a response, and answers in Kryptonian. “ _I was raised to act well in public,”_ he says, by way of explanation.

Kon quirks an eyebrow at that, obviously shocked by Tim’s use of his language without a translator. He seems a bit at a loss for what to say.

Tim speaks again, foot in his mouth as always.

 _“I’m glad we’ve finally gotten to meet,”_ he says, with a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. “ _I must say, I never thought I’d be married to a stranger. This was all very strange to me.”_

_“I hear this is not common on this world. I am sorry that you did not have the choice to follow your people’s traditions.”_

Tim wasn’t expecting that response.

_“I chose this. I knew what I was signing up for.”_

Kon lets out a quiet laugh. “Well, then, I am happy to meet you too, Husband.”

Tim’s heart seizes in his chest, his lungs constricting, his gut twisting. Hearing Kon say that, it makes this all seem so much more real. He coughs to cover his stutter and smiles a little wider. He hopes it doesn’t look as fake as it feels.

He’s saved from digging himself a deeper hole when Wally shows up, a lopsided grin on his face, a boutonniere wrapped in Nightwing blue ribbon stuck to his lapel, a glass of champage in his hand.

Tim’s smile suddenly becomes a lot less fake, and a lot more relieved.

“Wally!” he says, a little too excited.

“Hey kid!” Tim scowls at the nickname, but Wally pays no mind, instead reaching out and ruffling Tim’s hair, which only serves to deepen the scowl. “Congratulations! I can’t believe that two of Bruce’s sons have gotten married before him! Hey, think we can get Jay hitched before B and Selina tie the knot, just to mess with him?” The scowl disappears from Tim’s face, replaced again with the relieved smile. Leave it to Wally to make things less heavy. He and Dick were perfect for each other. He turns to Kon then, like he’s only just realize that they aren’t alone. He sticks out a hand. “Hi, I’m Wally West. Or, Wally Grayson-West. Whichever. I’m Dick’s husband, your new brother in law. It’s nice to meet you Kon-El.”

Kon stares at Wally for a second, just blinking. Tim realizes that the translator must be catching up a bit. Wally must’ve been talking too fast for it to work in real time. It catches up quickly though, and Kon smiles, shaking Wally’s hand.

“It is very nice to meet you too, Wally. Please, just call me Kon. We are family now, after all, yes? Kon-El is too formal for family.”

“Kon it is.” Wally smiles back at Kon and tucks his free hand in his pocket. “This is insane. Timmy, kid, I don’t know how you and your siblings handle all of the attention all the time. I’m exhausted already and we’ve only been here for like, half an hour. I think like, at least sixteen different reporters have shoved recorders in my face to ask for my opinion on all of this. Wild.” He glances down at the champagne glass in his hand, like he doesn’t remember why he’s holding it, then makes a face. “Oh. Before I forget, this is for you Tim. Dick approved. You look a little stressed. It’s your wedding. You should be able to loosen up a little. Don’t tell your dad.”

Tim accepts the glass and downs it in one go with a wince. Wally and Kon both look at him in concern, but he plays it off with a smile and a “Don’t want to get caught”.

Neither of them question it any further and Tim’s thankful. He wishes it’d been something a little stronger, but he’ll take what he can get, because there are people coming out of the woodwork to talk to him now, he can see them approaching, and he’ll need whatever help he can get to get through all of this.

Wally has to leave them too soon, and unfortunately he’s replaced with plastic people who are only around so they can say they were there when people talk about this in the future. Reporters who weaseled their way in try to talk to them, dignitaries and representatives from both sides come congratulate them, their families sneak in wherever they can, but there’s only so many places that Tim and Kon can direct their attention at once.

By the time they finally sit down to eat, Tim’s exhausted and it’s only been an hour and a half.

He mostly pushes his food around his plate and doesn’t eat. He feels sick. He wants to just take a break, be alone, but he’s married now.

Alone is not an option anymore.

So he pushes through the meal, and listens to Dick and Bruce’s speeches about him, smiles and laughs at all the right parts, puts a hand on Kon’s forearm when the attention shifts to him and his family, acts like he’s intrigued by the stories and not terrified to be having any sort of physical contact with his husband.

He plays his part well and tries not to think too hard about it all.

And then the speakers start playing a slow song, and Tim’s out on the dancefloor with Kon before he can even really process what’s happening. He vaguely recognizes this song as a violin piece he had complimented Damian on once, and then realizes that this is a recording of Damian performing it, and that thought is enough to get his hands to steady.

Kon takes his hand, and Tim, without thinking, places his hand on Kon’s shoulder.

Kon places a hand on Tim’s waist, and they begin to sway, and it’s nice enough, this is fine, Tim can handle this.

And then Kon pulls him a little closer so they can move together more easily. It presses Tim’s chest against Kon’s, which jostles Tim’s cracked ribs in an entirely unpleasant way, and Tim has to stifle a screech.

As it is, he still lets out a strangled, pained whine, his eyes wide as he drops his forehead almost to Kon’s chest, trying to hide his expression, because god that _hurt_ , but Kon cannot know that Tim is injured, no one can know.

Kon doesn’t seem to have heard him at first, and Tim lets out a sigh of relief, but when he looks up, Kon’s face is set, and after the dance is over, Kon doesn’t so much as brush against him for the rest of the night.

 _Dear god_ , Tim thinks, _I’m a dead man._


	3. Conversation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> an adult conversation finally happens

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi so this chapter finally addresses tim's fear from chapter one when he and kon are talking things out, also tim is a panicky little bean, so keep an eye out if any of that might bother you!
> 
> anything in italics and in quotes is meant to be speech in kryptonian, and anything in straight italics is communicating through sign language

The people that were only at the wedding because of politics or press start trickling out in the early evening, and there are fewer and fewer and fewer people and suddenly it’s just Tim, and Kon, and their families left. 

Bruce and Kal are making pleasant conversation, Lois and Selina seem to be getting on like a house on fire, Jason, Cass and Wally have roped Kara into what looks to be an in depth, but not angry, debate, and Dick looks like he’s entertaining Jon with a story while Damian watches in disinterest. 

And Tim is alone with Kon, who won’t even look at him any more. 

Tim’s heart races in his chest, his ribs screaming at every deep breath he takes. His hands shake in his pockets. 

He’s made Kon angry. He’s made his super-powered, super-strong, alien husband upset, and he doesn’t really know what he did to set him off and he has to go home with this man tonight and he’s terrified. 

He signed up for this, but he’s only nineteen, he shouldn’t be getting married yet, he shouldn’t be taking this huge step in his life so young, why did they even put his name on this list, why was he even considered for this, what were they thinking, what was he thinking?

What was he thinking? 

What was he thinking? 

What was he…

This particular panic spiral lasts Tim all the way until they are walking into his-- their. Not his anymore. It’s  _ their _ apartment now. Nothing is just his anymore. 

Everything is shared, a shared experience, a shared home, a shared life. 

He hates it. 

He hates this with every fiber of his being. 

It makes him feel sick and shaky and all twisted up inside, but he still unlocks the door, and hands Kon a key and opens up his home to this stranger. 

He takes a deep breath, and shuts the door behind them. It sounds very final. Tim tries not to think of closing coffins and final nails. He breathes, and he turns, and he pastes a painfully fake smile on his face, and he ignores the way his ribs scream at him, and he tries not to freak out even more at the assessing look Kon is giving him. This will be fine. He is fine. 

They stand in silence for a few moments, Kon taking in his new surroundings, his new home, before the quiet is shattered. The sudden noise makes Tim jump, though he’d never admit it. He’s supposed to have been trained better than that. 

Kon notices. 

Tim tries not to let that worsen his panic.

“Kal said they brought over my things yesterday. Would you mind showing me where they are? I would like to get more comfortable.”

Tim absolutely does not think of the implications of that comment. It is simply Kon wanting to get out of the stifling tuxedo he’d been stuffed into for the day. Tim wants to get out of his too and he’s spent his life parading around in tuxes like this. That is all this is, anything more is his treacherous mind attempting to worsen his anxiety about the whole thing. 

“ _ Let me show you the bedroom. _ ” Tim very carefully avoids saying ‘our bedroom’ because that’s a thought that he is not equipped to deal with yet. He leads Kon through the penthouse hallway to the master bedroom. Boxes containing everything Kon had brought to Earth take up one corner of the room, stacked neatly. 

Tim has a strange, almost overwhelming, urge to run over to the stacks of boxes and kick them over. Like that’s going to do anything for anyone. 

He shoves it away, but it niggles at the back of his mind, like him toppling a stack of boxes will actually get his new husband to leave him. 

He tells himself it’s just an intrusive thought, that it holds no weight, and moves on.

_ “I haven’t touched anything, I didn’t want to invade your privacy, but everything is here.” _ Tim makes sure he assures Kon that he didn’t do any snooping, that he wasn’t prying, right off the bat. Get that out of the way. No reason to make him angrier. 

“Thank you, Timothy.”

“Please just call me Tim,” Tim says. He voice is small, soft. He wonders if Kon would have been able to hear him without the enhanced hearing Tim knows he has. 

He also wonders why he’s so goddamn scared to make such a simple request of his husband. It’s not like this is really even asking for anything. If anything, calling him ‘Tim’ saves time over ‘Timothy’. He’s being ridiculous. He needs to calm down. 

It occurs to him, distantly, that this is the first time he’s spoken English directly to Kon. 

Kon, much to Tim’s stupid brain’s surprise, doesn’t not fly into a fit of rage at the simple request. 

Kon just smiles, this stupid lopsided smirky grin that Tim would find wildly attractive in any other situation, and nods. 

“Of course, I can call you Tim if you prefer, as long as you promise that I will just be Kon, then.” Tim nods hastily at Kon’s words, trying to not look too much like a bobblehead. “I am going to change out of this,” Kon says, plucking at his shirt with a scowl, “and ready for bed. Will you be joining me, Tim?”

_ Abort, abort, abort! _ Tim’s mind screams at him. 

“ _ I have some paperwork that has been put off for a very long time because of all of this. I would like to get to some of it before I sleep, if you don’t mind. I’ll change and be out in the living room.” _

Kon cocks an eyebrow at him, but Tim grabs a pair of sweats he stole from Cass and a shirt he pilfered from Dick and slips into the bathroom before Kon can say anything. 

He slips out of his suit and into the sweats quickly, only taking a few moments to examine the still dark bruise that his broken ribs have left him with before he tugs the shirt on too and goes back out to hang up the tux. 

“ _ I’ll be just outside, if you need me,” _ he says as he opens the door.

Kon is not wearing a shirt when Tim emerges from the bathroom, and he has abs that could be used as a  _ washboard _ , and Tim thinks this whole thing is one giant cosmic joke. He must have done something wrong in a past life or something, because he could see a life with Kon in any other situation. He could see himself accepting a date if Kon asked him out, and he could see himself agonizing for days, weeks even, over how to come out to him, and he could see himself getting to know Kon and he could see himself introducing Kon to his family and coming out and being accepted and he could see himself not living with this nagging, persistent, all consuming fear of his husband. 

It’s a pipe dream though. 

That is not this world, and that is not the Kon he’s bound to, and that is not the kind of relationship Tim gets to have. 

Instead, Tim gets the fear and the uncertainty and the stranger. 

He asked for it. 

He signed up for this.

Kon has still not answered. 

Tim starts wringing his hands, studying his husband, waiting for some kind of response. Any kind of response. He just wants to know that Kon heard so he can leave, flee the room and bury himself in his work. If he can solve the case that he’d cracked ribs retrieving data for, at least the injury will be worth it, and he’ll feel less bad about slipping up and letting a thug get a hit in. 

Kon doesn’t answer, in the end. He just pressed his lips into a thin line and nods once. 

Tim flees the room like it’s on fire. 

He takes five minutes to stop the hammering of his heart in his chest, and another five to settle his breathing into a steady, even rhythm, and then he pulls out his laptop and gets to work. 

This is easy, this is something he knows, something that will never change. 

Tim does not sleep that night, but by the time that the sun is rising and Kon is emerging from the bedroom, he knows exactly where the guys he’s been tracking will be in two nights. He can send Cass and Jason. They’ll be more than enough to handle these ambitious amateurs. 

“I did not notice you return to bed last night, Tim,” Kon says, voice raspy from sleep and from the translator. 

Tim smiles over what he thinks is his third mug of coffee and shrugs nonchalantly. “ _ I got caught up in my work and fell asleep out here, then I woke up a little while ago and was hit by some inspiration for a project for WayneTech,”  _ he lies easily and smoothly. Kon pulls a face, but does not question it. Tim sends out the information on the deal to Bruce, Jason and Cass, and shuts his laptop. He tucks the laptop away and slips back into the bedroom, changes for work and ducks out of the apartment as quickly as he can. 

It becomes routine. 

Tim leaves early in the morning for Wayne Enterprises, avoiding any and all contact with Kon if at all possible. He stays late at the office, until even the lab techs who get lost in their work and lose track of time have gone home. He returns to the apartment, and the two of them negotiate dinner through stilted conversation. They make awkward small talk as they eat. Tim changes in the bathroom and comes out to the living room and does work until he falls asleep, if he does sleep. He wakes up with a start at the sound of Kon getting up in the morning. He changes, he leaves for Wayne Enterprises again. 

Rinse. 

Repeat. 

It goes on for two weeks and Tim thinks he might actually be in hell. 

He calls Cass.

Kon’s out visiting his family or something, and Tim’s just come home from Wayne Enterprises, and with the free time and the lack of case work, Tim’s antsy. He feels like something’s off. Wrong. He’s probably just being paranoid. When Cass’ face pops up on the video chat, he settles at least a little bit. 

_ Little brother, are you alright? _ Cass asks, her long fingers moving fluidly with her signs. Tim watches her scarred hands as she talks to him and tries to come up with a response. 

His own hands open and close and open again before he settles on,  _ Yes. Well no, but I’m not hurt. Just… _ he pauses, unsure of how to continue. His hands stall in front of his chest.  _ Being married to a stranger is strange. I don’t know how to act around him. I don’t know what he wants from me.  _

_ You owe him nothing, Tim, _ Cass says, her movements sharp and succinct this time. Her expression is dark. 

_ I know I don’t owe him anything, but I still don’t even know what it is that I don’t owe him. I don’t know what he wants. I don’t know him. _

_ “ _ Cassie, I don’t know what to do,” he says aloud, a little helplessly. 

Cass raises four fingers and taps her chin twice. 

“What?” Tim asks, incredulous. 

Cass repeats her action, and speaks to accompany it, a single, strong word. “Talk.”

Tim shakes his head. 

“Talk!” Cass repeats, more emphatically this time. 

Tim shakes his head again. “I can’t, Cassie, I can’t. I can’t do that. What if he gets upset or something? What if I just piss him off? I can’t--” 

A key rattles in the lock. Tim freezes. He can see the color drain from his face in the little image in the corner of his screen. He switches back to sign language as Kon steps inside the apartment. 

_ I can’t talk to him. I just can’t. Thanks for listening to me Cass. _

_ Tim don’t hang up on me.  _

_ I have to go, he’s home.  _

_ Talk to him! Tell him how you are feeling! _

_ I can’t. He’s home, I have to go, Cass. I have to go. I’m sorry, I have to go.  _

Tim ends the call, and looks up to find Kon studying him curiously. 

“ _ What was that?” _ Kon asks,

Tim freezes, thinking, irrationally, for a moment, that Kon is upset with him for speaking sign. “ _ It’s sign language. My sister doesn’t speak. We communicate using signs instead.” _

Kon seems to consider this, and then nods once, and that is all they say on the matter. Kon makes dinner and Tim thanks him softly and they sit and eat in silence for a while, before Kon breaks it. 

“Tim,” he says, and his tone already has Tim on edge. Even though it’s entirely useless, Tim grips his fork a little harder. 

“ _ Yes _ ?” 

Kon looks like he’s considering his next words for a long moment, and each passing second grates on Tim’s nerves. He’s wound so tightly that he could snap. What does Kon want?

“We have been married for over two weeks, Timothy, and we have yet to follow through with any post-marriage traditions, from my planet or yours.”

Tim stops breathing. 

His brain short circuits. 

Dear god, no, please, fuck, anything but this.  _ Anything _ but this. 

His hands begin to tremble so violently that his fork rattles against his plate. 

“Tim,” Kon says, voice laced with what has to be false concern. 

It makes Tim start, the voice cutting through his thoughts, and he jumps out of his seat, stumbling backwards. 

The chair topples when he leaps from it, and he trips. He’s about to catch himself, he would’ve been fine. But Kon lunges forwards and grabs him to keep him upright and there are so many reasons Tim hates that. 

The first, and most pressing reason, is that Kon had wrapped an arm around Tim’s ribcage to steady him, right over his still healing ribs. 

The second is that Kon is  _ touching him _ and Tim can’t handle it. 

The pain and the touch and everything else is too much. 

Tim screams, a ragged, pained noise that sounds inhuman even to his own ears. 

Kon looks truly startled, enough that he releases Tim in shock, holding out his hands in a placating gesture. Tim throws himself away from Kon, doing anything to put more distance between them as fast as possible. 

“Timothy,” Kon says softly. 

Tim claps his hands over his ears and whines like a child. “Please, no, I should’ve said something, I’m… I’m defective,” the word slips out of his mouth before he can stop it, “I know, I’m sorry, just, fuck, don’t touch me, please don’t touch me,” he mutters, only half aware of what he’s actually saying. 

Kon takes a step closer, and Tim, without thinking,  _ runs _ . 

~*~

He’s not sure how he made it to Dick and Wally’s apartment, but he’s goddamn glad he did. He can hardly breathe or think or function like a normal human being, really, and Dick’s always been the one who’s been the best at getting the elephant off of Tim’s chest when he gets this deep into a panic attack. 

He’s hyperventilating and shaking and his heart feels like it’s going to hammer through his ribs. Dick doesn’t ask questions, just tugs him inside and holds him close and lets him fall apart. Tim doesn’t remember getting to the couch, but the next time he blinks, Dick is sitting down with him, and Wally is putting down a glass of water on the table and crouching in front of him. 

He doesn’t know how long they sit like that, how long it takes for him to stop hyperventilating and for the shaking to settle a least a little bit, how long it takes him to calm down. But Dick and Wally sit with him through all of it. Dick rubs circles into his back and Wally rests a comforting hand on his knee and they let him calm on his own. 

He thinks he hears a window open somewhere, but he doesn’t even move to look. He keeps his head in his hands, keeps his focus on breathing, doesn’t let himself get too caught up again. 

“Timmy, what happened?” Dick finally asks, his voice soft, not demanding an answer. 

Tim just shakes his head and gasps in a huge breath that nearly has him choking. 

It takes him another minute before he can force out a quiet, “Kon,” to answer the question. 

“What?” Tim hears, in a deep growl that isn’t Dick or Wally. 

“Jason,” Dick warns, his hand on Tim’s back spasming like he wants to clench it into a fist, but doesn’t want to breaking contact with Tim. 

Tim finally makes himself look up and is more than a little taken aback by the sight that greets him. Jason’s in full Red Hood attire, his blood splattered helmet tucked under his arm, a grapple gun still in his hand. 

“The fuck did he do to you, kid?” Jason bites out, his lips curling into a snarl as he gives Tim a once over for injuries. 

Tim just shakes his head helplessly. Kon didn’t  _ do _ anything.

“That fucker’s gonna pay, I swear to god,” Jason mutters and then he’s gone before even Wally can protest. 

“Oh god, he’s gonna kill him.” Tim isn’t really sure who he’s talking about. 

~*~

Three hours later has Jason returning to Dick and Wally’s apartment, through a different window this time. Tim’s settled down enough for Dick to coax him into changing into something more comfortable, drinking some water, having a bite to eat. He’s almost drifting off on the couch when Jason comes in, stumbling into things as he leaps through the window. 

Jason is alive, is the first thing Tim notices. 

He is only wearing a plain black t-shirt underneath his leather jacket, not his kevlar, and he is not wearing his helmet or domino, is the second thing Tim notices. 

He is uninjured is the third thing he notices. 

He lets out a sigh of relief. 

“I shot your husband in the head,” Jason says, as though it’s no big deal. 

Tim makes a strangled noise of surprise. 

“You what?” Tim squeaks. 

Jason brushes him off like it’s nothing. 

“He’s fine, don’t worry.”

Tim makes a noise that even he can’t really decipher and, when he can’t make words come out of his mouth, signs,  _ What the fuck is wrong with you? Did you know he’d be fine? _

“Well, no, but I also didn’t particularly care. Tim, do you know what you looked like when I came here the last time? Cause it wasn’t real great, Replacement.” Jason’s voice drops so low Tim can hardly hear him. He wonders if he was supposed to hear at all. “I was scared for you, Timmy.”

Tim doesn’t know how to react to that, he just sits in silence on the couch for a bit, staring at his brother. 

_ Are you okay? Did he hurt you? _

Jason shakes his head. “Guy was a perfect gentlemen. Mighta been cause I had a gun to his head. But you know, semantics.”

“Did you just walk into Tim’s apartment weilding a gun and start threatening Kon?” Dick asks from the doorway. 

Jason hesitates for half a second before nodding. “Yeah, pretty much. I’m the unstable brother, remember? He probably won’t think a thing of it. And I only brought one gun anyway.”

Tim’s eyes widen and he looks at Jason incredulously.  _ Are you kidding? I have to go back to him now! How am I supposed to go back there when you just  _ shot him _?” _

“Yeah, Jason, what the hell were you thinking?” Dick asks. He holds up a hand. “And before you say anything, no, this is not about your fondness for guns. We’ve moved past that, I don’t care. This is about you unthinkingly putting Tim in danger. Did you even consider that this could have ramification for him?”

Tim hunches in on himself a little. 

“I did, as a matter of fact, Goldie. Wouldn’t you know it, I’m actually not a moron.”

“Jay, you know that’s not what I meant.”

“I know what you meant, Dick. You thought I rushed in without a plan and fucked things up for Tim even more than they already were. I didn’t. I thought things through. Contrary to popular belief I’m a very skilled tactician, just like you and B and the little bats,” Jason says, his face stony. He takes a deep breath and shakes his head and softens his expression. “This isn’t the point. This isn’t about me. It’s about the Replacement.” Jason turns to look down at Tim then. “You need to go home and have a conversation with your husband.”

Tim opens his mouth to protest and Jason shuts him up with a single look. 

“I would not send you back there if I was not one hundred and thirty percent certain that you would be absolutely safe. Got it? You need to calm the fuck down, settle your nerves and then go back there and have an adult conversation with him. Got me?”

Tim nods. 

Dick stares at Jason for a moment, assessing him, before he nods too. 

“Stay the night and head back tomorrow, okay, Timmy?” Dick says softly. “You’re welcome to stay too Jason.”

Jason grumbles, but he does. 

~*~

Tim sleeps fitfully. But he sleeps. He wakes up in the morning to Wally speeding around the kitchen making breakfast, and his brothers make him eat before they even let him think about leaving for his own apartment. 

He forces himself to eat just so that he can get out of there, not bothering with the clothes he’d come in, simply leaving in the stolen sweatpants and shirt. 

The trip back to his apartment is too short. 

Kon is waiting for him when he comes in, sitting on the couch, with his head in his hands, staring at something on the coffee table. He looks up when Tim comes in the door, and Tim flinches back, unable to stop himself. 

Kon grimaces and stares down at whatever he was looking at before. 

Tim glances down, and sees that it’s a bullet, deformed from having hit something. 

From having hit  _ Kon _ . 

Tim sucks in a breath. 

He’s about to say something, but Kon beats him to it. 

“Tim, I am so sorry,” Kon says, his voice fraught with emotion. Tim freezes, because  _ what. _

“What?” 

“I had not realized how horribly I was affecting you, and I am truly sorry. I do not think I can ever make up for how… I never meant to make you so uncomfortable.”

“You’re not angry at me?” Tim blurts out before he can think better of it. He slaps a hand over his mouth, and stares at Kon with wide eyes. 

Kon, for his part, stares back in as much shock. “Timothy, I have never been angry with you.”

Tim’s brow furrows in confusion. “But you… at the wedding, when we danced, you… Kon, you wouldn’t even look at me after that. I thought I did something to upset you.”

Kon shakes his head, his expression twisting into something like pity. Tim doesn’t like it. 

“You did no such thing. I was concerned for you. Every time I touched you that day, you would tense, and at first I thought it was simply because you were not expecting it. But when we danced, I touched you and you flinched. I was worried I had hurt you, but you seemed uninjured, and I did not know what I had done to make you do that, so I did not touch you again, but it has not gotten better. You still avoid me.”

Tim’s mouth flaps like a fish for a second and then he’s signing frantically cause he has to get the words out and he can’t make himself  _ say _ anything. 

_ I’m so sorry, oh my god I’m an idiot, I can’t believe I didn’t see it, I’ve been so caught up in everything and I don’t know you and I was so afraid I didn’t even stop to think-- _

His hands falter to a stop at Kon’s confused look and he opens his mouth to apologize or say something, and the only thing that comes out is, “I’m ace.”

Kon taps at his jaw once, taps his translator, Tim realizes, and shakes his head. “I don’t think that translated. I don’t know what you mean.” 

Tim freezes. Really? He finally sits down to have a conversation with Kon and that’s how he brings up the topic of his sexuality? He smacks himself in the forehead and slumps into a chair across from Kon. 

He’s made his bed. Now he’s got to lie in it. 

His voice is near silent when he speaks. “I’m asexual. I don’t like sex, or sexual contact and I’ve been…” Tim trails off. He doesn’t know where he was going with that. He doesn’t know what he’s been doing. 

“They made you kiss me at the ceremony,” Kon says, a little horrified. 

Tim shakes his head, waving one hand out in front of him, like he can wave away that train of thought. “No, no, that’s not… that’s fine. I don’t mind that. That’s not what’s getting under my skin. Yeah, I was uncomfortable with it, but it wasn’t cause it was a kiss.”

Kon cocks his head to the side. “What was it then? Was it something I did? Please, just tell me. I do not wish for you to be so unhappy with me any longer.”

Tim thinks that the speed at which he forces his next words out could rival Wally’s speed-talk. “I was afraid since before I even met you that you’d want sex and I wouldn’t be able to give it to you and that it’d upset you and you’d try to do something and I wouldn’t be able to stop you because you have all of these powers here, you’re so much stronger than me, you could do anything you want and I can’t stop you. Jason  _ shot you _ and it still wasn’t enough to stop you and that’s fucking terrifying. I was terrified. I panicked.”

When Tim looks up again Kon has gone scarily still. 

“Please don’t just sit there, it’s really not helping, please say something,” Tim all but begs. 

When Kon speaks, it’s in Kryptonian. “ _ You thought I would try to force you? _ ”

Tim shrugs, but doesn’t deny it. 

Silence settles over them, heavy and oppressive, for a long moment before Tim can explain himself. 

“It’s not that I really thought you would? I just. It was a possibility. I mean, Kon, your little brother could cave my chest in with his pinky finger. I had never met you before the day we got married. I had no idea what you were like. If you ever got mad or decided you didn’t like me, I couldn’t stop you. I can’t stop you. I’m only human, and you’re like a fucking god, Kon. It’s scary, from where I’m standing. And I knew from your family that you were probably a nice person, but I had never met you.”

“Why did you run, last night? What did I say?”

Tim flushes bright red. “You said that we hadn’t done any traditional post-wedding things. I panicked.”

Kon stands, and, very slowly, makes his way across the room. He sinks to one knee in front of Tim’s chair, and gently, so, so gently, takes Tim’s hand in both of his. 

“Tim, I would never dream of hurting you. Harming one’s spouse is among the worst crimes on my planet. It never even crossed my mind that you would have thought of that as a possibility, and I am so sorry that I did not consider what you might have thought I was capable of with these abilities. I never meant to imply anything by asking you that last night. I was thinking of what your people call a honeymoon. You have seemed very stressed, and I thought the time away from work would have helped. I didn’t realize I was the cause of your stress.” Kon keeps his voice pitched low and even, keeps a gentle grip on Tim’s hand, the whole time he’s talking. 

Tim’s hand is shaking by the time Kon’s done, but neither of them mention it. 

Kon reaches out a hand, painfully slowly, and brushes a stray tear away from Tim’s cheek. 

“I am not asking to trust me entirely yet. I know that I am a stranger, and that I cannot ask so much of you as such. But can you at least trust that I will never, never attempt to hurt you in such an awful way?”

Tim hesitates, chokes on a breath, and then gives a jerky nod. 

Kon grips his hand just a little bit tighter when he feels it start to shake even more. 

“Thank you, Tim. For giving me that. I will ensure that you do not regret it. I swear it on my life, and the spirit of the sun.”

“I’m so sorry,” Tim whispers. 

Kon just shakes his head. “Do not be sorry. But do tell me. Where did your brother get a gun?”


	4. Confession

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> learning, a gala, and more adult conversation!!!

Kon, thankfully, does not press the issue of where Jason got a gun. He’s apparently got some very low standards for Earth. Tim’s not going to argue. He didn’t really want to have to explain that whole thing in the first place. 

Kon also does not get rid of the bullet. He moves it to the side, setting it on one of the side tables at one end of the couch as he goes to sit across from Tim again. It stays there, half obscured by a stack of gold and stone coasters that used to belong to Tim’s parents. 

Out of sight, out of mind, Tim forgets about its existence after a scant few minutes. He has more pressing matters to concern himself with. Namely, sleeping arrangements. 

He doesn’t particularly want to discuss that, but Kon brings it up anyway. Tim can’t help but scowl. It makes Kon laugh, which only deepens Tim’s scowl. 

He feels a lot like Bruce.

That thought makes him wipe the scowl off of his face in favor of a more neutral expression. It helps. Minutely. 

When Kon speaks, he speaks in Kryptonian, in a slow, soft voice that makes Tim’s insides melt a little. Not for the first time, Tim finds himself wishing that they had been able to meet under different circumstances. He wishes that he could have met this kind, outrageously hot man in a circumstance that didn’t make Tim’s insides twist and turn and knot themselves together. He abruptly feels like he’s going to vomit and shoves all of his feelings to the back of his mind, locks them away in little boxes, tiny compartments for him to deal with much, much later on.

He does not think of the fact that there are definitely healthier coping mechanisms. 

He stuffs his hands under his thighs so that he can ignore the fine tremors still running through them. 

The worst of the conversation is over, sure. He’s come out to Kon. Kon accepted it readily. He voiced his concerns, what was causing him the most anxiety. Kon was not put off by it. He was kind and gentle and so goddamn sweet about it. He tried incredibly hard to put Tim’s mind at ease. 

But that damned little voice in the back of Tim’s head will not stop reminding him that all of that does not mean that Tim’s out of the woods quite yet. 

He shakes those thoughts out of his head, and focuses on what Kon’s saying right now. The freaking out can be saved for later on. When Kon says something that freaks him out. 

He sighs. This is going to be a long conversation if he goes into it thinking like that. He tries to be more optimistic, ultimately fails, and eventually gives up, just listening to what Kon has to say. 

“ _ I know that you are not comfortable around me, entirely. I understand why now. And I’m still very sorry. But I hate the idea of you sleeping on this thing every night,”  _ Kon says, tapping the couch he’s sitting on. 

Tim’s eyes flick down to Kon’s hands and then back up to his face. He has nice fingers, Tim thinks absently. Then he thinks that that is a very weird thought and he shoves it out of his mind. It’s a little bit of progress, though, that that was his first thought, and not ‘oh god is he going to ask me to share the bed with him?’. Tim will take what he can get and this point, if he’s being honest with himself. 

“ _ It’s not that bad. I’ve definitely slept in less comfortable places.” _ The floor of the cave, slumped over various desks, a hallway in the WatchTower once, half on his bed and half off of it, medical cots in the cave, a corner of the training mats, sitting upright in Bruce’s favorite sitting room, under the dining room table… wow. He sleeps in a lot of places that aren’t beds, he thinks, a little concerned with his own habits for a moment before Kon snaps him back to the present. 

“ _ I still don’t like it. I am not going to ask you to share a bed with me, that is more than I think you would want, yes?” _

Tim nods, opens his mouth, closes it, nods again. 

Finally, he just raises a closed fist in front of his chest and signs ‘yes’ instead of saying it. 

Internally, he kicks himself. He’s a goddamn  _ superhero _ . He faces off with violent criminals on a near nightly basis. He’s been shot, shot at, stabbed, run ragged in more ways than he can count, and he can do it all without so much as a thought. Without batting an eye.

Why does simple conversation with his husband terrify him in a way that even the Joker can’t? 

He takes a deep breath and folds his hands in his lap. 

“ _ You’re going to have to teach me these signs, sometime soon. I don’t like not being able to understand you when you’re upset. It seems you use them the most then.”  _ Kon looks at Tim’s sheepish expression and then takes a deep breath to mimic Tim’s. He squints, and when he speaks again, it’s in English. MOst of it doesn’t sound translated. Tim ignores the strange manner the translator’s seem to work in in favor of just listening to Kon’s voice, hearing his strange accent for the first time without the hindrance of the mechanical tone. “I have done my best to learn this language. I would like to know all of your languages. I never want to be unable to understand you. But that is not what I want to talk about now. I have come into your home and unsettled you and changed your whole life. It is unfair that I am not allowing you to even sleep in your own bed, Timothy.”

Tim shakes his head, his brow furrowing. “It’s fine, really, Kon, I’m up late doing work most nights anyway. I usually fall asleep at my laptop out here anyway, it’s fine. You don’t have to worry,” he’s quick to assure, his fingers curling a bit where he’s stuffed them under his thighs again. 

Kon shakes his head too, and Tim has a flash of a thought about the fact that they’re both doing a lot of head shaking in this conversation. 

“Tim, I am not saying that you have to share a bed with me, you understand that, yes?” Tim nods his understanding. “But we do have a guest room. We can set that up. I will stay there, instead of your room, and you can sleep in a real bed, instead of on this... _ rock.”  _ Kon’s last word is muttered in irritated Kryptonian as he glares at the offending piece of furniture. It startles a strangled laugh out of Tim, which makes Kon smile, which, in turn, makes Tim smile as well. 

It reminds Tim of an interaction he might have with one of his family members, and that settles his nerves just a little bit. 

“I don’t want to be annoying or anything with al-”

Kon cuts him off. “You are not being annoying. You deserve to be comfortable as much as I do. I know you were… scared, before, that you would upset me. I just assumed that you were so caught up with work that you were not coming to bed because of it, I did not think that you were afraid to be near me, and I just assumed that you would come to bed eventually, because that is how things work on my world. Marriages like this are much more common on Krypton. I did not think about needing to talk about things like this. This is my fault. Do not think you are being annoying, when I am the one at fault for this entire situation. You are not to blame, in any way.”

Tim actually has to snap himself out of getting lost in the lilt of Kon’s voice, his accent and the low way he’s speaking getting to him. The night before was the first time Tim had slept in far too long, and he’d hardly really slept. Add to that the mental exhaustion from this conversation, and he’s finding himself zoning out. He wants to end this conversation as fast as possible. 

So he nods along with what Kon’s saying, though part of him is still insisting that he’s at fault here, though he doesn’t really know exactly what he’s done to warrant the guilt. He shoves it back into the the tiny containers in the recesses of his mind and tries not to think about it. 

Kon, for his part, looks at Tim with concern written in the lines of his face and sighs. “ _ You look exhausted.” _

Tim shrugs. “I’m fine.” 

“ _ Take a nap. Rest. We can set up the guest room for me and talk more later. Take care of yourself, Timothy.” _

His tone suggests there is little room for argument, so Tim just nods. 

He’d deny it later, but the second he stumbles into the bedroom, he collapses on the bed and passes out. 

His sleep is plagued with unsettling dreams, but he doesn’t wake. 

He sleeps through the day, well past dinner, and when he wakes and sees the time, he simply rolls over and falls asleep again.

He wakes the next morning to Kon, asleep on the couch. 

He considers for a moment, then moves through the kitchen as quietly as possible, and wakes Kon up with a mug of coffee and breakfast a little while later. 

And if in the end, it all makes him over an hour late to work? He finds he can’t really bring himself to mind all that much. 

~*~

Things are… better, after that. 

They are not good, but they are better. 

They spend a whole day together, repainting the guest room and rearranging some furniture and moving a few things Tim had stored in there to other rooms in the apartment. 

He learns that Kon can only stomach some Earth foods, and some others make him sick. He learns that Kon has a sweet tooth. He learns that Kon has… had a dog named Krypto, who is staying with his family. He learns that Kon really like country music for some god-awful reason. He learns that Kon has a beautiful singing voice, but only really sings softly under his breath when he thinks no one is listening. 

He learns a lot of things about Kon. Kon doesn’t really learn a lot about him, but that’s a different thing entirely. 

Still. Overall, it’s a productive day.

Tim can bring himself to be in the same room with Kon for more than thirty seconds without feeling like he’s going to choke, after that. He doesn’t feel like he’s going to vomit at every innocent, accidental touch. He’s not scared to just… have a conversation with his husband. 

He doesn’t have to lie and find excuses to stay out of the apartment until late at night, or find excuses to avoid going to bed. He can sleep in his own bed and not worry about sharing a space with Kon like that. 

He feels like he can breathe again. 

He finally exhales.

It’s liberating. 

It’s easy to fall into a routine after that. Kon will wake Tim up in the morning if he’s up first, greeting him with a warm smile and a cup of coffee. On morning after Tim’s pulled an all nighter doing case work for his family or because he was otherwise distracted, he’ll get Kon up with the smell of coffee and bacon cooking. 

Kon really likes bacon, they’ve discovered.

This feels almost normal. 

This feels almost like his marriage isn’t a complete sham. Like it isn’t just a political show that he’s gotten himself tangled up in. Like he can actually see some sort of future with his husband, rather than just seeing a potential danger whenever he looks Kon in the eye. 

Their breakfasts are easily one of Tim’s favorite parts of the day. Kon almost never has anywhere to be as early as Tim does, so while Tim is always in some late stage of getting ready to go to work, Kon is almost always still disheveled and sporting a serious case of bedhead. They sit and they eat, sometimes in near silence, sometimes exchanging stories so they can learn more about each other. Despite the fact that they are married and living together, each morning feels like a first date, like just dipping his toes into knowing another person, like a fresh start, like a new beginning. 

Tim loves it. 

Their dinners are much the same, though Tim’s generally a little more tired and strung out then, always grumbling about some issues he’s having with a department head or board member or incompetent people trying to tell him he’s too young to do his job. Most dinners consist of Tim complaining about work and Kon recapping whatever meeting he had to go to that day, or practicing his English without the aid of the translator if he didn’t have anything specific to do that day. 

Their private conversations are a jumbled mess of Kryptonian and English.

Tim begins to teach Kon American Sign Language. 

They start practicing that at dinner as well, sometimes. They go grocery shopping on the weekends together. Tim takes Kon to get fitted for a few nice suits, shows him the hottest fashion trends on Earth. He spends one memorable Saturday teaching Kon about memes. 

Kon spends a while attempting to educate Tim on as much Kryptonian culture as he can after that, but he keeps thinking of what Tim’s shown him and getting distracted laughing in the middle of sentences. They don’t get far in that. 

Tim loves this, more than he ever thought was possible. There are still nights where he dreads setting foot in his bedroom, worried Kon will follow him in. There are still moments when Kon takes him by surprise--Kon can fly, it turns out, and he really enjoys hovering around the apartment--and Tim will flinch violently away from him at first. There are still nights when Tim sits awake, busying himself with work because he can’t sleep, anxiety gnawing away at the edges of his mind. But it’s getting better and he finally, finally feels okay around Kon. He feels like he’s at least friends with his own husband and he loves it. 

From the moment he had agreed to this marriage, he had been convincing himself he’d never be able to have anything like this, but he has it now and he can’t believe how lucky he is that he gets this.

Four weeks into their marriage, they have their first staged public appearance, some gala that Bruce is hosting. A perfect opportunity for them to truly ‘debut’ as a couple. Plenty of cameras, plenty of plastic people to put on an act around, plenty of exposure. Tim can think of worse things than a gala. He’s lived through plenty of these before. He knows this scene, he knows how to handle these people. This is his home turf. He’s almost as comfortable pasting on the mask of ‘Timmy Wayne’ as he is putting on the mask of Red Robin.

A week before the gala, Tim, on a whim, put in a request with an old acquaintance of the family. The night of the gala, Tim presents Kon with a small jewelry box as they’re getting ready. Kon regards it curiously before opening it, and hsi jaw drops a little when he sees what it contains. 

“I thought it would be nice. I know traditionally on Krypton, most of your formal wear for occasions like this would bear your House crest. Since styles are a little different here, I adapted,” Tim explains sheepishly, showing off his matching pair of cufflinks. Muted colors, shiny silver metal, sleek design. The symbol of the House of El. The Kryptonian symbol for hope, Kal-El had told him. “I hope I didn’t overstep. I just thought…” he trails off, looking up at Kon with his nerves plain as day on his face.

Kon, for his part, still looks a little shocked. 

“Tim, they’re beautiful. This is… thank you.” He fumbles for a moment with them, before letting Tim fix them into his cuffs for him. 

Tim breathes a sigh of relief before he reveals the second part of the gift. 

“This might be a little overboard, but this is more understated.” 

He’s right. The tie pin is a simple silver design, thin, elegant, but etched into one end is the House crest yet again. Tim adjusts his own tie pin so he’s not hiding it anymore. 

Kon’s face runs through a complicated string of emotions before it settles into something neutral, his eyes betraying deeper feeling than the rest of his face conveys. 

Tim doesn’t know what to do with that. 

“Thank you, Tim. This means more than you know.”

“You’re welcome. I’m glad you like them,” he says sincerely, before joking, “I almost went a step further and got you a watch with the crest embossed on the face of it, etched in the back and everything. But I figured that’d be a little over the top.”

That startles a little chuckle out of Kon, but it’s nothing near his normal deep laugh that always seems to bring a smile to Tim’s face. 

Tim writes it off as nerves about the gala and clips Kon’s tie in place and they head down to the limo waiting for them. 

The trip to the gala and the first hour or two of it are uneventful. There are lots of fake smiles and glasses of champagne and drunk socialites pinching his cheeks or grabbing his arms and telling him he’s grown and  _ lots _ of people assuming Kon can’t speak English. That rankles Tim a little bit, but the reactions they get when Kon speaks flawlessly are entertaining enough that it doesn’t bother either of them too much. Jason’s plastered an hour and a half into the night, much to Bruce’s disappointment. Dick and Wally are there, making pleasant conversation with people who seem to be getting far too close to Dick. The glare Wally gives anyone who invades Dick’s personal space too much is downright terrifying. Selina is hooked onto Bruce’s arm in a truly stunning gown and a necklace Tim is certain is stolen. Kal-El and Lois seem to be engaging countless strangers in conversation, everyone listening to them with rapt attention every time they get lucky enough to be the ones talking to the Kryptonians. Kon tells Tim that Jon is home with Kara, due to the time. Cass and Damian are conveniently absent, citing the late hour in Damian’s case, and an unfortunate illness in Cass’. All in all it’s a typical gala for the first few hours, albeit with a few more big name politicians in attendance than is normal. 

But then there’s even more champagne being passed around and someone shoves a glass of something into Tim’s hand and does the same to Kon and they’re being ushered up to the front of the room and someone is demanding a speech and Tim squirms a bit at all the sudden attention. 

But this is nothing he has not done before. This is something he is prepared to handle and he is quick to fit into the persona he fronts for the media, a press smile settling on his face easily. 

He sets the glass he was given down on a table and takes the microphone he’s offered. He and Kon takes a few steps up the grand staircase so that everyone can see them.

Tim leans against Kon a little and looks up at him like he’s an enamoured teenager. 

Someone wolf whistles. Someone else calls ‘Speech!’ as though this is not what Tim was already planning on doing. Someone shouts ‘How’s married life treating you, Mr. Drake?’ That someone sounds a lot like Jason. Tim wants to scowl at his brother, but then someone else is asking the same question and Tim is reminded of the front he’s putting up at the moment. He sighs, and vows he’ll get his revenge on Jason some other way. Maybe he can get Roy to help him bedazzle Jason’s helmet. 

That’s a thought for another day. 

He loops an arm around Kon’s waist, and gives the people a speech. 

“Now I know we’re all here to support the Gotham Children’s Fund, but I will say a few words. I’m going to be a little selfish and say that this is a bit of a personal celebration as well. Months and months ago when I was approached about this treaty, I was skeptical, to say the least. A mysterious team of United Nations politicians comes knocking at your door asking you to marry an alien? It would unsettle anyone.” That earns him a laugh from the crowd. “But I followed some instinct telling me to say yes and I agreed. And I have to say, I was a little terrified at first. I had no idea who Kon-El was, and I was engaged to him. It was a little daunting. But then our wedding day came around and I saw him for the first time and all I could think was that I was marrying a truly gorgeous man.” Some wolf whistles again. It sounds like Dick. Tim’s going to have to get him back too, somehow. “Over the past few weeks, I’ve gotten to see that Kon-El has a personality to match his looks. I’m an incredibly lucky person to have been married to such an honest and caring man.” Tim feels Kon go suddenly tense, and, figuring it’s all of the attention, decides to wrap things up quickly. “And this is only the beginning, so I can’t wait to see what the future holds for us. Thank you to all of you for your support, and for supporting the Gotham Children’s Fund, you all do incredible work, and it means so much. Thank you.”

He is quick to pass off the microphone to someone else and usher Kon out of the spotlight after that. Kon’s grin is tight and forced. 

“Are you okay, Kon? I know all the attention can be a bit overwhelming.” 

Tim sees Kon glance around the room, and follows his gaze as he locks eyes with Kal-El for a brief moment. 

“I’m fine, thank you for the concern Timothy.”

~*~

Their mornings together get very awkward after the gala. Dinners are not much better. 

Tim doesn’t know what he did wrong.

It takes him almost a week to finally ask.

That conversation does not go well. It results in an argument far worse than any of the minor disagreements they’ve had up to this point. 

It comes to a head when Tim yells, “Why won’t you just talk to me, Kon? What happened to send us back to this? Why won’t you just say what’s bothering you?”

And Kon roars back, “I don’t owe you anything Timothy!” in a voice so loud Tim swear it makes the ground shake. 

It does not. The floor stays decidedly still. Tim, however. Tim shakes. Tim flinches away from Kon so violently he stumbles into an end table by the sofa as he steps past it. Something metal clatters to the floor. 

Kon stops dead in his tracks, and glances at the object that fell. 

He stoops and picks it up. 

He stares at it blankly for a long time. 

He dumps it on the table again.

He whispers ‘Sorry’.

He flees the apartment. 

Tim finally sees what it was. 

The bullet Jason shot Kon with. 

~*~

Kon returns some time around dinner, with take out from Tim’s favorite Italian place and a miserable expression on his face. 

They are silent as the set the table to eat, as the sit down, as they begin their meal. 

It’s Kon who finally breaks the silence. 

“I’m a clone,” he blurts out, with no preamble. 

Tim chokes. 

“Excuse me, what?” he asks once he finally composes himself. 

Kon is beet red and staring at the table as though he can bore holes into with his eyes. 

Which he can do, actually. 

Tim is suddenly worried about his table. 

When Kon speaks again, his voice is so soft Tim can barely understand him. He sounds embarrassed. Humiliated. Tim doesn’t like it and he doesn’t get why Kon sounds so defeated.

“I’m a clone. Lois Lan-Ne isn’t my mother. I have no mother. I’m an exact genetic copy of Kal-El.”

Tim takes a minute to process that. That sentence is a lot for him to unpack. 

“Okay,” he says, a little surprised, still. “I was not expecting that at all. That’s not… a possibility on Earth. But it doesn’t change anything.”

Kon shakes his head. When he drops his knife to the table, it’s deformed from being gripped in his hand too tightly. 

“You don’t get it. I’m a  _ clone.  _ On my planet that’s--Clones are second rate citizens. I’m not afforded as many rights on Krypton, because I’m not really a person. I’m a copy of one. Kal-El gets to make all decisions for me because I  _ am _ him.”

Tim’s eyes widen and his hands spasm with the sudden urge to grab Kon’s to attempt to comfort him. 

“Kon, I--”

“No,” Kon cuts him off. “I need to say this all now or I will never say the rest of it. Kal-El has always asked me about every decision that he has made ‘for me’. I was an experiment that Kal-El’s father did without Kal-El’s knowledge, to test a new method for cloning, just to see if it worked. He did not really… want me, at first, but he has always been good to me, once he got over how I came into existence. He has treated me like a son. Lois Lan-Ne treats me like her son too, like I am Jon’s brother. They are my family. But the rest of Krypton does not really see me that way. I am El, but in a different capacity. I am… lesser, to them. At the gala, you gave me something to wear with my family crest. I would never be able to bear the crest like that on Krypton, but you gave it to me like it was nothing, and because it was a gift from my husband I'm allowed to wear it. You gave me that, you gave me the ability to bear my family's crest. And then during your speech, you called me honest and caring, when I have been lying to you about this and it scared me. Scare is not the right word, but you know what I mean. It is why I have been acting so strangely. I wanted to tell you and did not know how. I am sorry. For all of it.”

That is the most Tim has ever heard Kon speak all at once. He’d be a little in awe if what he was hearing wasn’t so goddamn awful. 

He actually does reach across the table to take Kon’s hand then, squeezing it gently. Kon’s hand stays limp in Tim’s grip, but he does not pull away so Tim does not let go. 

“Kon, I…” Tim trails off, unsure of what to say. He doesn’t want to say sorry and sound like he’s pitying Kon. But what does one say to their husband, when they’ve just found out their husband is treated as a second rate citizen on their home world. 

“I’m sorry, that I deceived you. Kal-El agreed to this on my behalf because he wanted to get me off of Krypton and give me a chance elsewhere, and the Council agreed because I’m such an… advanced clone. I’m sorry that you were forced to give up your chance to marry a real person, just for me.”

Tim smacks the table with his free hand, and extracts his other hand from Kon’s to point at him. 

“Shut up. Shut up. Right now,” he snaps in a manner entirely unlike himself. “Do not talk about yourself that way. Kon, I don’t care how you came into existence. I don’t care that you’re a genetic copy of someone else. We’re all just genetic copies of other people. The rest of us are just… merged copies. I don’t care what you are. I care who you are. And you have been nothing but kind and caring to me, and now you’re being honest, even though I can tell this is hard for you. That’s all I care about. That’s it.”

Kon chokes on a breath and gasps when he inhales again. 

It sounds too close to crying for Tim’s liking. 

He reaches out and takes Kon’s hand again. 

“Can you promise me that you’ll continue to be considerate of my feelings, and honest with me?”

“Yes, absolutely.”

“Then you have nothing to be sorry for Kon.”

Kon finally squeezes Tim’s hand back. 

By the time they turn to their dinner again, it’s gone cold. 

Neither of them mind.


	5. Revelation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tim has something to tell kon

They make it two and a half months past Tim’s wedding before there is an Incident. The Joker breaks out of Arkham and brings a mess of people with him and it turns, very quickly, into an all hands on deck situation. 

Tim wasn’t supposed to get back in the field for three and a half more months, was supposed to be adjusting to being married and figuring out how to work in being Red Robin to his married life, figuring out if Kon could be trusted or not. Bruce said the final decision was up to him, but he said it in a way that made it very clear that he wanted this kept secret for as long as possible. Tim wants to point out that Selina started out as a criminal they were trying to stop, and now she’s not only working with them, but she knows their names and is on the fast track to becoming their step-mother. To be fair, Bruce had come to trust her before the whole proposal thing, but still. Tim says nothing, because he doesn’t want to hear whatever lecture would spawn from that. He knows why Bruce is concerned, so he’s been mulling it over since the day he met Kon’s family.

To this point, he hadn’t come up with a real answer to that. But this situation didn’t leave room for much choice. He had to go out as Red Robin, regardless of whether Kon knows his identity or not. He couldn’t sit by and let his family handle this emergency while he sat comfortably in his apartment. 

So Tim finds himself on a Gotham rooftop on a Tuesday night, staking out Penguin and his henchmen with Steph, while Cass and Bruce hunt down the Joker, and Dick and Damian go after the Riddler, and Selina and Jason go looking for Ivy. 

Steph is being her usual nosy self, pestering him with questions about Kon and what it’s like living with him and if there’s any new weird powers he’s got that they didn’t know about before and right around then is when Tim starts wondering if Bruce put her up to this. He doesn’t ask if Bruce really did put her up to it, because he doesn’t particularly feel like getting punched in the face more than necessary tonight, but he thinks it. 

He thinks it a lot. 

He miscounts the number of thugs in the warehouse, he’s thinking it so much. 

They get the greenlight from Bruce to go in to take out the thugs and get Penguin into custody. 

Tim makes seven hostiles besides Penguin. 

Stephanie takes his word for it. 

Together, they leap through the skylight. 

Steph lands herself squarely on a thug’s back, knocking him to the ground with a thud that almost makes Tim wince. She’s grinning like a madwoman when she springs to her feet, and Tim can’t help but smile a little back. 

He’s hit very suddenly with the thought that he’s missed this. 

He’s missed this extra time he used to spend with his family. He’s missed feeling like he was really doing something to help Gotham, something with immediate benefits, not just something that will help the city in the long run, like his work at Wayne Enterprises. He’s missed the rush of being in the middle of a fight, stopping bad guys in their tracks. 

He’s missed being Red Robin.

He turns around and punches a guy in the face. It feels better than he’d ever admit. 

He and Steph work through the mass of thugs like it’s nothing, and Tim’s firing at Penguin’s feet before he knows it, a wire tangling around Penguin’s feet and stopping his escape before it can even really get underway. 

“You make it too easy for us, Ozzie,” Tim says as he binds Penguin’s hands and gets the man to his feet. Really, it was too easy. This is probably a record for getting Penguin back after a breakout like--

“Red! Look out!” Steph shouts, and before Tim can even fully turn around, he’s met with a baseball bat to the ribs, and fuck if that doesn’t hurt. 

He drops Penguin and moves to block the next swing, but he’s just a fraction of a second too slow and the thug gets in another lucky hit. Tim hears something crack. That’s not good. 

That’s very not good.

He collects himself quickly and wrenches the bat out of the thug’s hands before he can swing again, and then Steph is swinging in and delivering a swift kick to the jaw and the guy goes down and stays down. 

“I thought you said there were only seven!” Steph exclaims, and Tim can just tell that behind her mask, she’s raising her eyebrows and giving him a look. He doesn’t need to see the top half of her face to know that. He can tell it all from the set of her mouth. 

“Miscounted,” Tim says, wrapping an arm protectively around his torso. God his ribs hurt. How could he have miscounted like that? He’d only been out of the field for two and a half months! His skills couldn’t be that rusty that he’d missed an entire person!

“Red, you need to get back. Let Agent A take a look at you. You’re bleeding,” Steph points out, her forehead creasing in worry. 

Sure enough, Tim’s got a sluggishly bleeding cut just over his left eyebrow. How could he have missed that too?

And if that isn’t just the shitty icing on the shitty cake that is this shitty night. 

Steph hauls Penguin to his feet, and tightens the restraints on his wrists. When he complains, Stephanie smiles sharp enough to cut steel and hisses in his ear, “You hurt my friend. I don’t really care. Want to keep complaining?”

Penguin shuts up. Tim shoots her a grateful smile and presses a finger to his comm to open a line. 

“Red Robin to Batman and Oracle. Batgirl and I have Penguin and his men in custody. Awaiting police assistance.”

Babs’s voice crackles over the line. “Squad cars enroute, standby, Red.”

Bruce’s follows not long after. “Status report, Red Robin.”

“Batgirl’s fine. I’ve got a minor cut on my forehead and probably a cracked rib or two,” he says with a wince. Leave it to him to get a cracked rib on his first night back in the field from one of  _ Penguin’s _ goons, of all people. 

There’s grunt on the other side of the line and what sounds like a muffled yell and then Bruce is biting out over the line, “Return to the cave immediately Red Robin, as soon as GCPD has your scene secured. No arguments, that’s an order.”

Tim grumbles, but he begrudgingly agrees. 

In the end, he supposes Bruce has a point.

It takes what feels like several years for the GCPD to finally get to the scene to clean up and take the thugs into the station. In reality, it only takes them sixteen minutes to get there. Tim thinks that time is lying to him. 

His ribs hurt. 

He calls his R-cycle so that he ride back to the cave instead of grappling there cause his body is so not onboard with that idea at the moment. 

Alfred is on him as soon as he gets back, and Tim doesn’t even try to wave him off, knowing that B, Babs or Steph called ahead of him and there’s no way out of this for him. He resigns himself to a lecture on being careful and 

Alfred’s disappointed look. 

There’s a mug of Alfred’s special tea at the end of it all for him, so he doesn’t complain. Too much. 

He has two cracked ribs, some impressive bruising and two stitches in his face, he’s entitled to a little bit of complaining, isn’t he? And, really, come on! He’d just gotten his last serious rib injury completely healed up a few weeks ago, can’t he just go for like, two months without a serious injury to the thing that keeps his vital organs safe? And if he can’t, can’t he just complain about it just a little bit?

Alfred says no, but that doesn’t stop him. 

It probably should, but Tim’s exhausted and in pain and not exactly thinking entirely straight. Sue him. 

He passes out on a cot in the med bay, before any of the others even return from patrol. He wakes up in his old room in the manor. Bruce’s doing, maybe Dick’s. Tim doesn’t really care. He goes back to sleep. 

He wakes up in a panic an hour later, to three missed calls from his husband. 

Because  _ fuck _ he never told Kon he wasn’t going to come home last night. 

He sits bolt upright, and shit, his whole body protests that movement, but he’s more focused on calling Kon than he is on the immense amount of pain radiating from his ribcage. 

“Tim? Are you okay?” is the first thing he hears come over the line when Kon picks up the phone. 

Tim sighs. He feels awful for worrying Kon like that. He feels even worse that he’s about to lie. 

“Yeah, yeah, Kon, I’m fine, I just stopped by to visit my family and go over some files with Bruce and we got caught up and I fell asleep at the manor. I meant to call you, I’m sorry.” 

Kon lets out a long, slow breath, and Tim’s heart sinks. He feels terrible. 

“You do not have to apologize,” Kon says softly. 

“No, no, I’m sorry for worrying you. I should’ve called. The time just got away from me.”

“It is okay, Timothy,” Kon insists.

Tim has the distinct feeling that it is not. He doesn’t say that. 

Instead he says, “I’ve got to go into the office today to take care of a few things, but I’ll be home for dinner. I can bring home something from that Indian place around the corner? I remember you liked that that last time we tried it.”

Tim can almost hear the smile on Kon’s face in his voice when he says, “Yes, I did. I would like that. Are you sure you are alright?”

Tim drags a hand over his face and forces a bit more enthusiasm into his voice when he responds, “Yeah, of course? Why wouldn’t I be?”

“You sounded a little  _ not right _ ,” Kon says, his last couple words in Kryptonian rather than English. He’s been trying to speak without his translator recently, and he forgets words and phrases here and there frequently enough that Tim’s gotten used to the flipping back and forth between languages to understand Kon. 

“I’m fine, Kon. I’ve got to go. I’ll see you tonight.”

They hang up and Tim collapses back into bed with a groan. 

He eventually rouses himself and goes in to work and muscles through what he’s certain is the worst day in the history of ever, which he’s said before but that’s not important. 

By the end of the day, he’s exhausted and hungry and he just wants to eat dinner and go to bed, but that, of course, is not what the universe has in store for him. 

“Rao, what happened to you?” Kon says as soon as Tim steps through the door. 

Tim’s about to be offended, because Kon’s never commented on his appearance in that manner before, but then he remembers that there is a stitched cut on his forehead. 

Fuck. 

He gets his expression back under control quickly, and gives Kon a bit of a self-deprecating smile. 

“Oh you’ll never believe it. I was at the manor yesterday and I was heading up the staircase and Damian’s stupid dog comes running right at me. The damn thing’s so huge he knocked me over and I fell down the stairs. I’m fine. We have a family doctor, I got checked out, no concussion or anything, just a little scratch,” Tim lies smoothly as he sets the take out bags on the counter in the kitchen. His heart’s pounding in his chest, hoping Kon will buy it, but his voice is steady and so are his hands. He’s experienced at this. 

“That does not look little. What is in it?” Kon asks, brow furrowing in confusion as he steps forward. He reaches out a hand and ever so gently brushes his fingers just under Tim’s cut. 

“Not in it,” Tim explains. “It was a little deep, so it had to get stitched shut, so it’ll heal. I’ll get them taken out in a week or so and it’ll be fine. Doctors are just extra careful with facial injuries. It’s not a big deal. I’m more angry with the dog than I am concerned about this.” He waves a hand in the general direction of his face and turns to pull food out of bags so they can eat. 

Kon looks like he wants to say something more, but in the end he stays silent. 

~*~

A week goes by and Tim goes back to the manor so Alfred can take his stitches out, though he’s certain he could have done it himself. He has to keep up a bit of an appearance for Kon. Alfred checks his ribs too, says that he needs to be careful to limit his activity but that nothing seems wrong with them, other than the fact that they are cracked. Kon doesn’t ask anymore questions other than to inquire about when Tim’s stitches will be removed. Bruce confirms that everyone who escaped during the Arkham breakout has been apprehended, with minimal civilian casualties. It’s as good as it gets in Gotham. 

Things are good. 

And then, on the Saturday after Tim’s stitches are removed, Kon asks Tim to stay put after they eat breakfast, because there’s a conversation he wants to have. Tim’s heart feels like it’s going remove itself from his chest for a minute after Kon says that. 

Kon’s quiet for a long moment as he tries to find the right words and when he opens his mouth, it’s so much worse than what Tim was imagining. “I know you’re lying,” Kon says. 

And, fucking  _ what? _ He knows Tim’s lying about  _ what? _ A thousand possibilities flit through Tim’s mind in the span of a dizzying few seconds and his mouth flaps like a fish until Kon speaks again. 

“You said you fell down the stairs. I spoke with Dick the other day and he said that one of your siblings accidentally hit you with a door when they opened it. So one of you is lying. Or you both are. Why?”

Ah. 

Shit. 

Tim’s sure his eyes widen and he pulls a face before he wrestles that reaction back under control. 

“I’m not lying. Dick just likes to exaggerate stories sometimes. It’s nothing really.”

There’s a beat of silence and then Kon says, “Did you know I can see through things? What did I hear it… X-ray vision. I have x-ray vision. Sometimes it’s a little difficult to control. And I looked at you yesterday, and I didn’t see fine. Your ribs are broken. That is not fine. So why are you lying? Who did this to you? Not one of your family. Right?”

Tim, because he’s an idiot, responds, “They’re fractured not broken.” And then he smacks himself in the face. “Goddammit.”

“So you were lying to me,” Kon says slowly. “Who did this to you? Why are you lying for them?”

“I’m not lying for anyone.”

“Then why did you not tell me you were badly injured? Why did you lie about how you were injured?”

And Tim makes a split second decision in that moment that he is certain is going to earn him the world’s angriest lecture from Bruce later on.

“Because I couldn’t tell you how I got hurt without you finding out who I am!” he says without thinking. His other hand comes up to cover more of his face then, and he makes a little distressed noise that he will deny making. 

“But I know who you are? You are Timothy Drake-Wayne. You are my husband,” Kon says, confused.

“I am Tim Drake-Wayne. Sometimes.” He takes a deep breath and steels himself. He’s dug this hole for himself. He’s got to deal with it now. “But sometimes, I’m Red Robin, too.”

“Red Robin. The vigilante that works with the Batman I hear about on the news?”

Tim nods, and keeps his hands over his face so that he doesn’t have to look at Kon’s reaction. 

“There was an Arkham breakout last week and I’ve been mostly running computers with Oracle while I’ve been trying to decide whether to tell you this or not, but with so many big names back on the streets I had to go out to help my family. I couldn’t just sit here and do nothing while they dealt with that. It was all hands on deck. But I’ve been out of the field for a couple months, I was rustier that I thought, and I miscounted thugs and one of them got in a lucky hit before Batgirl could get to me.”

“Rao,” Kon whispers, something akin to awe in his voice. It might also be shock or horror, but Tim’s not really in the best state to be reading someone else’s emotions at the moment. “You said your family. To help your family. Are all of your siblings… like you?” Kon asks finally.

Tim nods. “All of them. Bruce, Selina. Dick’s husband. Our friends Steph and Babs.”

“Barbara is in a wheelchair,” Kon says, as though that is not obvious. 

Tim waves a hand dismissively. “She still kicks ass. Don’t cross her. She was the first Batgirl, and now she runs monitors for us. She’s the most badass person I’ve ever met.” He’s honestly a little bit in awe of Babs’ resilience and motivation and drive. She never fails to impress him. 

“Your whole family.”

Suddenly, Tim sits upright with wide eyes and stares down Kon. “You cannot breathe a word of this to anyone. It would be disastrous. Not just for us, but for you too, just because you’re married to me. No one can know. Not even your family. And I’m so sorry to have to ask you to keep this from them, but I can’t… if anyone else knows, it can spiral out of control and next thing you know, there are villains knocking down our doors because they know who we are and that’s how people die and I can’t lose anymore family. You can’t tell anyone.” Tim sounds a little hysterical by the end of all that, but to be fair, he is. He’s telling Kon his biggest secret. He’s more scared now than he was when he came out to Kon and that’s saying something because he was terrified then. 

“Timothy,” Kon says quietly. “It will be fine. I will not say a word. But can I ask you some questions?” He reaches out and takes Tim’s hand, and the world seems to come screeching to a halt. It’s blissfully silent for a moment as Tim nods. 

“What do you want to know?”

~*~

Six months later, a new hero takes to the streets of Gotham.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and this is where we leave each other!
> 
> -eventually, once bruce and kal-el become friends, kon's family will gradually become more involved in superheroing until kal, jon and kara are all running around in spandex with everyone else, 'kicking names and taking ass'.   
> -tim and kon grow together even more (training provides a lot of alone time) and not long after that, tim becomes comfortable enough to share a bed with kon  
> -by the time kon takes to the streets as a superhero, tim can, with confidence, say he is in love with his husband, in a way he never thought he would be before.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm on tumblr at _[grxysxns](http://grxysxns.tumblr.com/)_ if you want to scream at me


End file.
